


"Do not Meddle in the Affairs of Wizards..."

by perelleth



Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works & Related Fandoms, The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-21
Updated: 2020-12-08
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:41:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 31,714
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27656306
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/perelleth/pseuds/perelleth
Summary: It is time for ritual storytelling in Imladris. Every time a Wandering Company leaves for the Grey Havens, Celebrían retells the tale of the Guardian, who lived in the Towers and ran with wolves, as part of the farewell ceremony. But even Elven fairy tales disguise darker stories of grief and sorrow under magical events, and only a few chosen know the truth behind this one. Decisions made at the beginning of the Third Age will have lasting consequences, even beyond the circles of the world. And Wizards are subtle and quick to anger.
Relationships: Celebrían/Elrond Peredhel
Comments: 4
Kudos: 8





	1. "Do not Meddle in the Affairs of Wizards..."

**Chapter 1: Do not Meddle in the Affairs of Wizards.**

_The Tale of the Guardian, who lived in the Towers and ran with wolves, is a traditional farewell story in Imladris. Only a few chosen know the truth behind the fairy tale._

_Imladris, 2441, Third Age. A bright day of spring._

‘The Guardian had already lost count of how many sun-rounds he had dwelled by the Towers of Emyn Beraid.

‘Survivor of a dreadful war that had put a bloodied end to an Age of the world and sick of slaughtering, he had fled the battlefield in search of forgetfulness. His wandering feet led him across mountains and plains to that peaceful land at the West of the world, where he settled down naturally, as if the place had been waiting for his arrival.

‘There he lived in close friendship with the beasts of the forest, and the creatures of the skies, and the dwellers of the river; and all things that grew trusted him. Even the birds from the Sea came from time to time, to visit and bring news of the wide world. Soon he got used to their sole company and remained there alone, keeper of the secret that was housed in the tallest of the Towers, though he dared not touch it, or look into it, lest he be caught in its spell.

‘With time, he not only learnt the voices of all the creatures of the forest but their ways as well. With time, he even managed to change his mind and shape into those of the animals that he loved best at will.

‘As word spread of a stern Guardian who flew with the grey falcons and ran with the forest wolves, and who welcomed not strangers in his land, the Wandering Companies soon began to avoid that place on their route to the Havens, and thus for many _ennin_ the Towers almost passed away from memory, surrounded by a thick, unwelcoming forest and protected by strange creatures. Meanwhile, the Guardian led his solitary existence mingling with the creatures of the woods and enjoying the simplicity of their lives.

‘One day, the Guardian of the Towers awoke from a deep slumber that had lasted several days.

‘He gasped wildly and flailed around in panic, blinded and almost suffocated, until he remembered where he was and _what_ he was.

‘Several days - or had it been moons? - of swimming with the River dwellers had almost made him forget his true nature.

‘Slowly, he forced his lungs to breathe in the clear forest air. The soothing voices of the trees finally made it through his muddled brain, greeting him with a mix of worry and amusement. Remembering that he now had eyelids, the Guardian risked a brief look around.

'“Was he a fish? He is going to choke outside the water!” a worried voice piped in, while the rest of the children agreed with vigorous nods. The storyteller cast a warm smile at her troubled audience and winked at them comfortingly.

'“He opened his eyes and that was a big mistake,” she continued in a reassuring voice.

‘Unused to the bright light and the piercing eyesight of his kind, the spinning world made him dizzy. The Guardian closed his eyes tightly, thankful now for the eyelids that had caused him to panic but a few moments ago.

‘Next time he opened first one eye, then the other, and fixed them on a dark, jumping blur beyond his nose –a bird that eyed him in curiosity from a spiny bush that shielded the Guardian’s silvery body from the scorching sun…

 _‘“I do not have scales anymore!”_ he remembered, hauling himself to stand -first on wobbling knees and hands, then up on unsteady feet- and frightening the bird, who flew to a nearby tree and scolded him from there.

“Was he an Elf, then?”

“A Man?”

“A Perian?”

“A Wizard?”

“One of the Onodrim?”

Even the adults gathered in the airy porch joined in the guessing game.

The storyteller sat impassively, listening to all conjectures with an impartial smile, until an expectant silence took over the audience.

‘With a last glance to the silvery heads that popped from the River’s surface to say goodbye, the Guardian climbed the river bank and walked back to the Towers.

‘Everything remained there as he had left it when he followed the urgent call of the River people…how long ago he could not guess.

‘All that he remembered was slipping into the cold waters and feeling his body change, shortening and thinning. Then a brief flash of silver, and his arms and legs were turned into powerful, supple fins. He had soon found himself slicing through the water, a silvery arrow among others. From there his memories were blurred, but he still had visions of a dark realm, and shiny creatures, and greyish waters that shone with a cold light and resonated with music enthralling beyond what he had ever heard…and a deep, unnamed fear that crept into the bottom of the river through the mighty roots of the oldest trees...Shadows were seeping again into the water, he feared, and the River dwellers worried that this time they would not be able to fight them….

‘Suddenly, something shook him from his recollections.

‘Not everything was exactly as he had left it.

‘The Guardian stopped on his way and cast a bemused look around.

‘It was many sun-rounds since he had last readied the soil for sowing, preferring the things that grew wild, but now he could see that the ground had been turned over in a wide patch, where, no doubt, something had been planted.

‘He looked around warily, listening intently for any sign of danger. But the trees still greeted him merrily and chattered about acorns and bird nests, and insects and spring blights, as was their wont in this season.

‘The Guardian put his hand to his waist, but found that he did not carry his knife there.

‘Taking a deep breath, he walked cautiously to the disturbed area and knelt down. With fingers that barely recalled their craft -for ever he spent more time in animal shape- he dug in and pulled up a strange seed he did not recognize. He studied it, smelled it, tasted it and finally planted it back in defeat.’

‘A sudden breeze brought him a strange gossip about a bright spirit and a sweet mist that stirred some distant memory he could not wholly place. With a last look around, the Guardian decided that he was too tired for riddles and walked to the closest of the Towers, which was his home. He pushed the wooden door open and…

“No, Guardian, do not enter! There is something very evil in there!” someone shouted form the porch.

A frightened gasp rippled across the rows of children who sat in enthralled silence at the feet of the storyteller. She shook her head and cast a reproving glance at her eldest son, who had startled the audience knowingly.

‘He pushed the wooden door open and went to his chambers, and fell again in a deep slumber, knowing that the birds and the trees would let him know in case of danger.

‘The following day, and after he made sure that the treasure he was guarding was still safe in its high chamber in the tallest of the Towers, the Guardian found other signs of a stranger’s presence: A moss-coloured cloak of a very good thread forgotten on a wooden stool; his tools, which he had not used for long moons, scattered on a work bench; a wicker basket full of apples that he had not gathered; clear tracks of man-size, boot clad feet stomping around his home…It was a mystery for the Guardian, who had lived alone in the Towers for so long that he no longer remembered the sound of other people’s voices, let alone their looks. He guessed that the stranger would come back for his cloak, and he was worried and curious at the same time.

‘He asked the trees and birds for news, but all that he would obtain was a strange tale of bluish mists, a warm laughter and a bright spirit.

‘And the Guardian waited.

‘Then one day, a pale green shoot began to spring out of the planted earth. Standing at the edge of the blossoming field, the Guardian frowned mightily as he recognized the plant.

 _‘“Men!_ ” he thought in displeasure, for he had stopped speaking aloud long ago. It was _sweet galenas_ , whose leaves the newly arrived Periannath –and the Edain after their manner– used to lit their stinking pipes and shroud themselves in reeking mists around the fire in the great house in Bree. He stomped on the budding sprouts closest to him and looked around in wrath.

‘Men.

‘He had had enough of them, seven sun-rounds of despair upon a forsaken battlefield and one last chance for hope lost to pride. He barely checked a foul growl that grew inside.

‘Evil was spreading from the North; that, he knew only too well, he had fought it too often in the distant Downs and beyond the Weather Hills, together with the bright armies of the Firstborn, though unnoticed to them. But until now the Towers had been left undisturbed. He would not tolerate Men in the vicinity. Could it be that, forced from their lands by the darkness of Angmar, new hordes of Men were heading toward him, disregarding their own tales about the mysterious Guardian and the golden-coated wolf that slit enemies’ throats as easily as a bear plundered a honeycomb?

‘With great effort the Guardian sent unpleasant memories of his dealings with Men to the back of his mind. He looked around in desolation. The plants had to go. Where they took root the land was quickly exhausted, and nothing else would grow.

‘And he would have to be more watchful.

‘This was surely the danger the River people had tried to show him.

‘With a sad sigh, for he loved all things that grew, he uprooted the budding plants and then burnt them in his hearth.

‘It took him two days, but when he was done he had a plan.

“Did he set a trap to catch the stranger?”

“You will see.”

‘Several moons later a grey falcon with a ring of golden feathers around its neck tumbled down from the sky and fell on the straw roof of the workshop beside the smallest Tower. Too weak to steady itself, it rolled down and hit the ground in the battered shape of the Guardian.

‘Urged by the worried, encouraging whispers of the trees, the Guardian slowly regained consciousness. Tired and numb, he barely had strength left to drag himself under cover of the thatched roof. With clumsy hands that still had a few grey feathers he covered himself with straw from a nearby pile, drank some water from a bowl on the ground and fell dead asleep.

“Where had he been?”

“He could not know. He was in falcon-shape!”

The storyteller smiled at the two curious elflings and winked at them. “In a moment, children. Do not rush the tale.”

‘It took the Guardian several days to recover his strength and sense of orientation, and then he searched his home in growing trepidation. The pile of straw that had sheltered him and the bowl of fresh water that he had found so conveniently ready were only the first signs. The windows and door of his Tower had been repaired, there was a new fence around the empty stables and a pile of wood neatly arranged in the winter storeroom, as well as a good amount of fruit and dried fish carefully stacked for the upcoming winter. And -worst- the patch had been planted anew and the pipe-weed was now ready for harvest.

‘The Guardian looked around warily, fearing that he was being watched.

‘But again the trees spoke not of danger but of a friendly presence, and exchanged sleepy praises about the stranger who had kept them company, before falling under their winter spell.

‘The Guardian was a bit scared, but mostly annoyed at himself.

‘He had taken the shape of a grey falcon to better watch his home, hoping to catch the stranger when he returned for his cloak, but soon the predator instinct had taken over and he had soared in the wind and flown away, lost to the pleasure of cruising the skies and stalking his prey.

‘He had traveled far and seen much: the fumes of war and devastation in Arnor, the failing of the kingdom and the darkness that spread from the North, the defeat of the king’s men and the desolation of the cities, slowly abandoned to moss and decay as men withdrew before the power of Angmar.

‘The warm currents had lifted him over the distant mountains then, and he had seen strife and more darkness spreading east and south across the land of Gondor as well…About to lose himself to the call of the winds that lured him beyond the sea with a promise of a country where prey was numerous and life peaceful, he had suddenly recalled his duty and had hastened back home, dreading what he would find.

“Men were living in his home?” a small girl dressed in traveling clothes lifted a hand to her mouth, eyes wide open, compassion and worry showing on her face.

‘The stranger had made himself at home in his absence, it seemed, but for now he was nowhere to be seen. A sudden surge of anger took over the Guardian, and he set himself to destroy what the stranger had built. He scattered the straw, and the wood and the winter supplies, and shredded the cloak to threads. He tumbled down the fence and the new door and then went to the plantation; but he wept as he pulled out the grown leaves of pipe weed and burnt them in a great fire.

‘From high in the skies, the lands he had known so well had looked like his small patch of garden, he thought in despair; a twisted and ruined country where soon nothing would walk -except for wraiths creeping into once hallowed mounds- and where nothing would grow except for black-hearted, rotten trees. He kicked the ground in wild impotence and then fell to his knees and howled in despair until he almost lost his voice.

‘For half a moon he sat on the ravaged patch, unmoving like a sleeping tree, drinking the raindrops that dripped from his golden head, patiently waiting for the stranger to return to the comfortable burrow that he had obviously readied for himself. The first snows heralding the arrival of winter from the East began to fall, and there were yet no signs of the uninvited guest.

‘One day, the Guardian suddenly tilted his head, fully awake. The call was unmistakable, and it stirred a deep longing in his heart. Almost without noticing, he jumped from his patch and dashed away on all fours, a golden-coated and grey- eyed big wolf howling in wild glee to his pack.

“And now he will chase the stranger and tear his throat open!” an elleth said with sparkling eyes, “and thus no more visitors will dare pass by the Towers ever!”

“But we are staying at the Towers, my naneth told me we are!” another boy informed, trying not to look too alarmed.

“Will you not hear the rest of the tale, children?” the storyteller asked, glaring menacingly at the barely concealed chuckles of her own grown-up children and several counselors of the House who were gathered to listen to her already traditional parting tale.

“Hear, hear!” her sons claimed playfully, and the elflings followed their example eagerly. Soon a mighty din of merry elven voices rang across the porch and then went to die by the river - _“hear, hear!”-_ carried away by an obliging spring breeze.

'“Several winters passed and another new spring brought no word of the Guardian,” the storyteller continued after they had all calmed down.

‘The beasts of the forest, and the creatures of the skies, and the dwellers of the river, and all things that grew missed him dearly, though they still hoped that he would one day return to them, when the darkness that spread again from the east had been vanquished.

‘Meanwhile the Towers flourished under the caring hand of the kind stranger who had frequented the place in the Guardian’s absence. The stranger had definitely settled down there barely a sun-round ago, after frequent visits along the years. Though old and bent, the man tended a growing orchard carefully, and the newly planted patch of pipe-weed as well. He lived peacefully in the Guardian’s Tower, listening to the birds and trees though saying nothing about himself. Yet all the creatures felt that his heart was good, and were pleased with his presence.

‘It was one warm, sweet scented night at the end of spring. The stranger sat on the bench before the tower, shrouded in his bluish mists, listening to the chattering of the owls as they exchanged news before the night’s hunt. Suddenly, a blood-curling howl froze the forest.

‘It was a howl like none they had ever heard before, full of hatred and pain, the sound ofsomething escaped from the darkest pits of evil and let loose to ravage the land would make. It howled again, twice, and then was heard no more.

‘The stranger stood up suddenly alert, clutching his man-high wooden staff. He tilted his head and listened intently to the distant voices of the trees. Then, swift and silent as a night bird, he disappeared into the forest.

“He went to chase the Guardian?”

“Was the Guardian evil?”

“No, he was not, but he had been trapped by the evil Witch King…”

“But Glorfindel defeated the Witch King…”

“That was ennin later; did you not listen to Master Erestor’s history lessons?”

With an amused sigh the storyteller gracefully deferred to the stern counselor.“Master Erestor?”

“By your leave, my lady. I will grant an extra piece of Cook’s special way bread to the one who is capable of telling me in which year Glorfindel defeated the Witch King from Angmar…”

“In one-thousand five-hundred?”

“Nay, it was in one-thousand _nine_ -hundred!”

“One-thousand nine-hundred and seventy-five, at the Battle of Fornost!” two elflings shouted excitedly at the same time.

“Very well! That is two pieces of way bread for you two!. Now, a more difficult question: when does this tale take place? The king’s men were defeated and the Guardian fought alongside the Elves beyond the Downs and the Weather Hills…”

“What is the reward?”

Erestor smiled at the lanky youth who stood a bit apart, leaning on a column with a mixed expression of longing and disdain. With studied movements the counselor pulled a thick, leather-bound book from a pocket in his tunic and waved it around.

“ _Pennas Endore._ So that you will never forget the history of the lands of your birth,” he baited the audience with a wide grin. Erestor’s volumes were highly valued by all those who had had the fortune of receiving one of them as a present…and coveted by those who had not. Delicately illustrated, his books of lore for children were treasured and passed from parents to children as a prized possession. “Now, child, it is your turn…”

“Easy. Later than one-thousand four-hundred nine, when Cardolan finally succumbed to Angmar.”

“Very well! Your grandfather fought valiantly there…”

“Yet I never heard tell of a wolf in those battles…”

“Nor did I,” Erestor reassured him with a conniving wink, passing the volume to the sullen youngster. “And I fought there as well. But I heard tales of a Wolf-lord indeed. Perhaps we were not looking in the right direction. Now shall we allow the Lady Celebrían continue with her tale?”

“My thanks, Master Erestor.” She bowed gracefully and picked up the thread.

‘For two days the creatures of the forest, and the dwellers of the river, and the birds from the skies, and all things that grew fretted and worried about their new master, who had disappeared without a trace. On the third day the stranger returned, and a deep sigh of relief rippled across the forest, and the river, and the skies.

‘The stranger worked intently in his orchard and pipe weed patch for a day and a night and then went to sleep. No more howls had been heard since the stranger departed that fateful night, so life regained its peaceful pace at the Towers.’

“Where was the Guardian, then?”

‘Half a moon later a wounded, bedraggled wolf collapsed by the river bank not far from the Towers and forced himself to drink. Its pelt was muddled and matted, covered in dirt and dried blood from a nasty gash that ran up his shoulder and along his back, so its golden mantle was barely noticeable.

“It was the Guardian! What had happened to him?”

‘For several sun-rounds the Guardian had fought with the remaining Dúnedain of Cardolan to keep the evil creatures at bay, away from the hallowed Downs where their last prince had been buried. After a mighty battle, in which they had finally destroyed the last of the malevolent spirits fighting for possession of the mounds in the Downs, the Guardian had tried, fruitlessly, to return to his own shape.

‘The Dúnedain were now scattered in the wild, the last of his pack brothers had been killed by a monstrous wraith-wolf and the Guardian himself had been badly injured by that venomous creature. Alone and trapped in wolf shape, he had finally surrendered to an ancient instinct. Slowly, painfully, he had taken the long way west, hoping to die at home.

‘But now, as he dragged himself to climb the steep bank that led to the Towers, he caught the faint scent of the hated bluish mist and a red fog of killing instinct took over his exhaustion and his wounds, lending strength to his weakened limbs. With a feral growl, he carefully chose his path and approached the Towers under cover of the trees, barely noticing their worried, soothing and welcoming whispers.

‘Panting, he lay in wait under an overgrown bush at the brink of the planted field, studying his surroundings in search of the intruder, who was nowhere in sight. Satisfied that he was alone, and heeding an unbearable rage fuelled by the poison that coursed his veins, the wolf surged up in a mighty leap and set himself to destroy the carefully planted orchard and the grown patch of pipe weed. He bit and slashed and tore apart and uprooted cruelly, caught in a wild frenzy of murderous wrath that blinded him.

‘Only a small part of himself was still alert, and its warning reached him a moment too late, right before he heard the soft snap and felt the mighty jolt. Next thing he knew he was hanging upside down from a young tree, his hind legs painfully caught in a firm knot of raw rope he had not noticed in time.

‘In his fury, he twisted and turned and contorted his body, managing only to tighten the knot on his paws and hurt himself deeper. Breathless and dazed, he hung there for a while, recovering his waning strength, fighting back a darkness that slowly crept upon him, threatening to overcome his exhausted senses.

‘“Well, well, well, look what we have got here!”

‘The deep, menacing voice startled the wolf; he jolted and groaned in his uncomfortable position. Through pain-fogged eyes he saw a tall stranger, robed in grey and covered with a pointy hat, getting threateningly close to him. His white hair fell wildly along his back and it also grew all over his face, reminding the Guardian of someone he had once known.

‘The stranger seemed unimpressed by the wolf’s low, menacing rumble, for he kept advancing with a mighty frown, supporting himself on a long wooden staff. When he deemed the man to be close enough, the wolf tensed his powerful body and snapped with his sharply fanged jaws, managing to tear the overconfident stranger’s sleeve and, judging by his yelp, to graze his arm as well. Baring his teeth, the wolf snarled warningly, but the intruder let escape a soft, mocking laugh.

‘“You are angry, are you not? Well, so am I,” the man observed, shaking his arm with a thoughtful air and studying the wolf through narrowed, calculating eyes. “It serves you well, for destroying my orchard and my pipe weed patch, and scattering my winter supplies and shedding to threads my best cloak,” he grunted then, an angry blaze in his bright eyes.

‘But he now kept himself out of reach, the wolf noticed as he twisted again, trying to bite the infuriating stranger despite the excruciating pain on his back and his hind legs. His sight was blurred, though, and his strength was fading, and he barely resisted when the man extended his staff and poked at his belly and his lacerated back. The Guardian struggled fruitlessly, trying to swat the staff away with his front paws. A look of concern suddenly replaced the annoyed expression in the stranger’s face as he carefully prodded the long wound on the wolf’s shoulder and back. Warmth spread suddenly over the angry, burning gash, while the stranger murmured soft words the wolf could not understand. He was now breathing in short gasps, quickly losing his fight against unconsciousness. 

‘“This is entirely unexpected…” the man muttered in a voice that suddenly sounded more surprised than enraged, studying the wretched creature intently.

‘With his staff on the base of wolf’s throat, the stranger lifted the big head and forced the grey, dazed eyes to meet his. It suddenly seemed to the Guardian that a friendly presence was reaching out to him, urging him back and away from that haze of pain and misery.

‘“How could this be? But then, it would explain many things…” Amazement was now plain in the stranger’s voice. A light of recognition that soon turned to worry kindled under his bushy brows as he leaned closer and searched the wolf’s powerful spirit, wrestling to set the Guardian’s free.

‘Caught in that powerful gaze, the wolf and the Guardian fought the stranger bravely. With a last bout of strength and a wild growl, the wolf twisted his head and bit the staff furiously, breaking contact with the calm, demanding eyes that lured him back to a life he had long ago rejected.’

‘Shaken and stunned by the sudden surge of power that coursed through him, the wolf let go of the staff. Quick as lightning, the stranger passed a makeshift halter that he had kept coiled around his wrist over the wolf’s muzzle and tightened the loop. The wolf shook his head wildly, trying to free himself, but to no avail. With a swift movement, the man wrapped the wolf’s head in his cloak and proceeded to tie his front paws, gently but firmly.

“‘I am sorry, my friend, I never thought that this would come to pass…”

‘Before he could wonder, the rope he was hanging from was cut, and he hit the ground heavily. The blow drove the air from his lungs and forced a weak, pained yelp from him.

‘And then, he welcomed darkness gladly.

“Poor Guardian! Who is going to save him now?” A wave of sympathy and concern flowed across the audience. The storyteller lifted her head and looked beyond the rows of wide-open eyes in expectant faces. She smiled softly at a tall, golden-haired elf lord dressed in traveling clothes who had just arrived at the porch and slouched against one of the wooden pillars of the stairs. He shook his head in mock despair and waved for her to continue with her tale with a resigned shrug.

‘“For three days and three nights the stranger looked after the bedraggled wolf inside the Tower,” the storyteller picked up her thread again.

‘He cleansed and stitched his wounds, and waited by his side while the wolf raged in fever. From time to time he would pet his matted pelt, murmuring soothing, unintelligible words in a language that was now seldom heard in Middle-earth, but which had a calming effect on the restless creature. When he finally got rid of the powerful poison that coursed his veins, the wolf fell in a deep, death-like slumber. And still the stranger remained by his side, forcing water into him and watching over his sleep.

‘On the dawn of the fourth day a bold ray of sun speared the dark chamber and gilded the bed. Startled out of a brief spell, the stranger’s gaze turned in relief to the shape that rested before him.

‘“Wake up, Gildor Inglorion of the House of Finrod, and be welcome back to the life of the Firstborn,” he greeted with a relieved grin, placing a hand on the uninjured shoulder of a tall, fair-haired elf who slept peacefully in the place where the big, golden-coated wolf had lain for three days and three nights.

‘It took the bewildered elf a long while to regain his senses and his awareness, and for a time he shied from the stranger, studying him warily.

‘But the stranger was patient and caring, and he talked tirelessly to the elf, telling him about the Towers and the forest creatures that had missed him, but also about the wide world and his elven kindred. He kept him company and took care of his many wounds and bruises, until the elf was again able to stand and walk unaided. But yet he would not speak.

‘“I apologize again,” the stranger said one day as they sat on a bench outside the tower, casting a regretful glance at the red scars that still flared on the elf’s ankles, where the rope had bitten deep in his flesh. “But I feared that evil men or fugitives from Angmar were invading the Towers. I only wanted to protect what is kept there,” he explained, pointing vaguely at the tallest of the towers. “I did not expect to find you here…” he continued speaking pleasantly, already used to elf’s stubborn silence.

‘He paused to draw shamelessly on his pipe and shrouded them both in blue, sweet scented mists that soon dissolved into the silvery fog that came up from the river. “And I did not expect to catch a shape-shifting Elf when I set up my traps… although it serves you well, for meddling in the affairs of Wizards…” he added with a soft laughter that rang of silvery bells and warmed hearts and souls.

‘“Wizards? I know not about your kin… but I can truly say that they are subtle and quick to anger,” were the recovering elf’s first words in several ennin. “Have you another name, that I can thank you properly?”’ he added in a hoarse, growl-like voice.

‘“Many are my names, but I am known as Mithrandir among your kin. And very glad that they will be, when they learn that you still walk the lands of Hither. You have been deemed in the care of Mandos for more than a thousand sun-rounds now,” the wizard informed him in a lowered voice. “The Lady Galadriel still mourns deeply the last of the lords of her House…” Seeing the pained wince on the Elf’s face the Wizard turned his attention to a small bird stalking a piece of bread on the bench, giving him time to master his feelings.

‘“How did you know who I was?” the troubled elf asked after a long pause, in a voice that sounded clearer now. The Wizard shook his head and laughed, and left his question unanswered with a knowing wink.

‘“I know not who or what you are, Mithrandir,” the elf sighed then. “But I owe you my life. What can I do to settle that debt?”

‘“Recover your own self and hide no more among beasts. It is not for the Firstborn to live the life of Yavanna’s creatures for too long, my friend. Had I known of your plight I would have come to your succour earlier…”

‘“Your help was timely enough. You have my word, although it will not be easy to keep, I fear. As a boon, I will allow you to maintain your pipe weed patch as well.”

‘“I’ll hold you to that,” the Wizard chuckled, and they spoke of it no more.

‘The Wizard remained for a time in the Towers, while the elf regained his strength. The beasts of the forest, and the creatures of the skies, and the dwellers of the river, and all things that grew greeted him; and the birds from the Sea came again to visit him and brought back the tidings, and there was great joy in the Havens. Every time he would be stricken by grief, or burdened by hefty memories of what had been lost, the Wizard’s presence would comfort him and rekindle his hope and brighten his spirits. With time, his bouts of despair were overcome and became a thing of the past.

‘A new spring had come, and it was almost a sun-round since the Guardian had returned to the Towers in wolf shape.

‘“Look, there is someone looking for you,” Mithrandir said with a wide smile, pointing to the bench where they used to sit in clear nights. They had been away on a long hike, and they both had agreed that the elf was wholly healed. He still talked with birds and beasts and trees and with the river dwellers freely, and felt not the urge to take their shapes and live amongst them. He now followed the wizard’s indications and could not hold an amazed gasp as a swift, mighty shape loped silently towards him.

‘“How, why?” he wondered, falling to his knees and burying his face in the soft, silky pelt of a big, golden-coated wolf that greeted him with short, low howls.

‘“His is a powerful ancient spirit who slipped into the wolf when you took its shape. He supported and strengthened your fëa when you were weakened by the wraith’s poison. He then remained there when you recovered your own shape. I convinced him to keep you company, as Guardian of the Towers. That is my parting gift,” the wizard added with a kind smile, watching fondly as elf and wolf wrestled playfully on the ground and exchanged affectionate bites.

‘“Why are you in such a hurry?”

‘“You are healed and my errands are countless. But I will send word of your return, so the Wandering Companies pay you a visit on their way to the Havens…and those who love you know that you are safe.”

The tall, golden-haired elf chose that moment to interrupt the tale in a deep, slightly hoarse voice.

“Everything is ready and the company is waiting, Lady Celebrían.”

“In a moment, Gildor, I am almost done.”

There was a collective gasp followed by a swoosh, as all the children turned as one from the storyteller to the elf who had just spoken, and then again to the storyteller. It had just dawned on them that the troubled, dangerous Guardian of the tale and the playful, friendly elf lord who was going to be their guide on their way to the Havens were the same. Pretending that she had not noticed, she continued with the narration.

‘“Take good care of the Towers…and of yourself, Gildor Inglorion. Rest assured that our paths shall cross again many times,” the wizard said, and with a parting bow he disappeared in the forest.

‘And so it came to pass that the elf continued to dwell in the Towers, but from time to time he would also travel the land and serve as a guide to the Wandering Companies as they tarried leisurely on their way to the Grey Havens –as you, my children, are about to do. May Elbereth shine on your path and may the Lord of Waters take you home swiftly!’

The Lady Celebrían had barely reached the end of her tale when the children jumped on their feet and swarmed towards the golden elf, showering him in questions, boldly taking his hands and looking for hidden claws or fish scales.

“Could you turn into an otter?”

“How did it feel to fly like an eagle?”

“It was a falcon!”

“But it is the same…”

“Can you turn into a fish?”

Gildor laughed and shot an amusedly reproving glare at his playful kinswoman. “I could, but as you have just heard, I made a promise long ago not to do such things anymore,” he would remind them.

“Ah, but I would watch him carefully at night…and would be very cautious before fishing, or shooting any forest creature, if I were you!” Elrohir warned them seriously, as the adults joined the chattering crowd on their way to the main yard, where the rest of the departing company waited.

“Shall we see the Guardian on our way, Gildor? Is he your friend still?”

“He is. We shall see him at the Towers, for he keeps the watch while I am away…”

“Is he dangerous?”

“Only to the enemy. And now, children, if I were you I would not make Mithrandir wait longer than necessary…it does no good to cross a wizard, as you surely have learned by now!”

With a delighted shrill, the throng of excited elflings spilled over the well-tended garden and towards the yard, shouting in glee and daring each other to approach the imposing-looking Wizard, who waited patiently with the Lord of the House, several of his counselors and the rest of the company.

“I cannot understand why you continue to tell such a nonsensical tale,” Gildor complained good-naturedly, embracing Celebrían and dragging her to match his long stride. The tale of the Guardian had become a tradition in the leave-taking ceremony in Imladris –a tradition that all adults followed with barely contained mirth and Gildor suffered with his best smile .

“It is the least that you deserve, Gildor, after you frightened us so badly and for so long,” Arwen reminded him, waving a reproving finger before his face and softening her reproach with a beautiful smile.

“And you should be grateful that she chose to tell such an embellished tale, instead of the plain truth,” Elrohir chimed in from behind him.

“Sure, what would those children think were they to learn that Mithrandir turned you into a toad the third time you destroyed his patch of smoking weed?” Elladan joked. “At least this way they will look up to you in respect for the first hours of your journey,” he added with a snort.

“One of these days you should send your sons to escort one of the Wandering Companies, Celebrían,” the golden haired guide retorted with a laugh. “It would do them well, to undertake certain responsibilities…”

“Do not be so harsh on us; it was only a joke…”

“Why don’t you tell us the true story? It cannot be more shameful than being turned into a toad,” Elrohir quipped. Gildor stopped and turned to face him, an imposing look in his blazing grey eyes.

“Pray to Elbereth that you never find yourself at the receiving end of a wizard’s helping hand, Elrohir,” he warned the youngest twin in all seriousness.

“For they are subtle and quick to anger, brother-mine!” Elladan ended with a chuckle, and they all broke in loud laughter, causing all those waiting in the yard to look up at them and smile in turn as the merry group reached them.

“She remainins here, Gildor,” Elrond said curtly, retrieving his wife from the close embrace in which she was held. Gildor let escape a rueful laugh and bowed briefly.

“I know, Elrond. She is the reason why I keep coming here!”

“We are ready,” Mithrandir cut in, surrounded by children eager to learn more tales from the wizard. “We should be leaving now…”

“Fare you well, my friends, and come back at your leisure,” Elrond pronounced with a half-smile, embracing first his annoying relative, and then the wizard. He then bowed silently to the rest of his people, his hands over his heart, for all goodbyes had been said before in the Hall of Fire, and the company departed amidst songs that followed them long after they had disappeared behind the trees. 

~*~*~*

“You can let Celebrían breathe, Elrond; the Guardian is on his way to the Ford,” Glorfindel joked from his perch on the railing. Elrond and his household had retired to Celebrían’s garden after the company left, and they now sat there in companionable silence, sipping wine and enjoying the peace in the secluded valley. 

“Is it true that you were once jealous of Gildor, Adar?” Arwen asked with a mischievous grin on her beautiful face. The Lord of the House shook his head in dignity, still clutching his wife possessively. 

“How could I be jealous of someone who once was a toad?” he wondered haughtily, picking one of his sons’ favourite jokes and relishing the chorus of laughter that followed. 

“Who won your parting gift this time, Erestor?” Glorfindel asked.

“Maentalf’s son...” 

“How convenient…”

“He earned it in all fairness, but I concur that it was most appropriate. When his pain is eased, he will look on it with fondness, I expect…” 

Elrond listened to the conversation absentmindedly. Maentalf had died not ten sun-rounds ago, in an ill-fated scouting mission. His eldest son had retired into himself since then, forcing his naneth to finally take ship, lest the child fade in grief and resentment. Erestor’s book would surely help him one day, when he learned to look back to Middle-earth without anger, he hoped. Briefly, Elrond felt again the fresh sting of pain at the marring of Arda, which not even the powerful pulse of Vilya on his finger could completely keep at bay. With a relieved sigh he looked around and not for the first time thanked the Powers for his family and his friends, and the peaceful life that they had managed to build for themselves in that secluded corner of Middle-earth. 

“We did not have all this, back then,” Erestor observed with a knowing smile, as if reading his thoughts. 

_*He* did not have all this,_ Elrond told himself with a deep surge of remorse, pressing Celebrían’s hand in gratefulness while remembering the cloak of melancholy that used to weigh upon Gil-galad for days every time a ship sailed west. 

“I marvel that Círdan insists on remaining there,” he whispered. 

“The Sea is not to blame for his losses,” Glorfindel reminded them softly. “And the Lord of Waters still sings of hope to his ear. The Shipwright lives facing the way west, waiting for the day when the last ship departs and he finally sets sail towards all those that he has lost. He would not live elsewhere…” 

“Well, Glorfindel, and while that last ship departs, do you have any tale of shameful misadventures with Mithrandir that Naneth could turn into a children’s tale for a change?” Elladan interrupted in his blunt manner. 

Thankfully, his children’s moods were not dampened by deep sorrows or everlasting partings, Elrond considered, smiling despite himself at his firstborn’s bold change of subject. 

“I have yet to run into shameful misadventures, I regret to inform you…” 

“Yet I bet that Erestor can tell us some of your most disgraceful deeds from your first days in Lindon…” 

With a deep sigh, Elrond relaxed against the padded bench and pulled his wife closer, watching as his family engaged in one of their bantering sessions. But he could not join in. The story of the Guardian always unsettled him. Beneath that gentle account lay a sad tale of unbearable grief and dark despair that only Celebrían, Mithrandir and Gildor himself knew to its full extent. The burden of years and loss weighed heavier on all the elvenkin every passing ennin, he thought sadly. He wondered idly whether he, too, would succumb to despair were he to set foot outside his secluded valley and taste for himself, day after day, the bitterness and loss that Gildor, as well as the few other Exiles who still remained in Middle-earth, had been carrying upon their shoulders for years uncounted. 

Celebrían’s laughter rang silvery in his ears and distracted him from his morose thoughts. 

No, he decided, watching as the others shared laughter and comfort; he would not succumb to grief even if he were to carry the weight of years and sorrow of an Exile, and deprived of the protective shield of Vilya. He would still have his family and his friends, and that would suffice. 

**TBC in Chapter 2, The true story of The Guardian**

**A/N**

_The title comes from the advice Gildor tells Frodo at the beginninf of FOTR "Do not meddle in the affairs of wizards, for they are subtle and quick to anger." FOTR, The Ring Sets Out.  
_

_Pennas Endore_ means “Tales from Middle-earth” 

The Towers of Emyn Beraid were raised by Gil-galad for his friend Elendil, and they stood west of the Shire, on the road to Mithlond. It is said that the palantír kept in the tallest of the towers allowed its wielder to gaze into the true West. 

Some canon background to support the tale: 

_A great host came out of Angmar in 1409, and crossing the river entered Cardolan and surrounded Weathertop. The Dúnedain were defeated and Arveleg was slain. The Tower of Amon Sûl was burned and razed; but the palantír was saved and carried back in retreat to Fornost. Rhudaur was occupied by evil men subject to Angmar and the Dúnedain that remained there were slain or fled west. Cardolan was ravaged. Araphor son of Arveleg was not yet full grown, but he was valiant, and with the aid of Círdan he repelled the enemy from Fornost and the North Downs. A remnant of the faithful among the Dúnedain of Cardolan also held out in Tyrn Gorthad (the Barrow-Downs) or took refuge in the Forest behind._

_It is said that Angmar was for a time subdued by the Elvenfolk coming from Lindon; and from Rivendell, for Elrond brought help over the Mountains out of Lórien._

_(…) It is said that the mounds of Tyrn Gorthad, as the Barrowdowns were called of old, are very ancient, and that many were built in the days of the old world of the First Age by the forefathers of the Edain, before they crossed the Mountains of the Ered Luin into Beleriand, of which Lindon is all that now remains. Those hills were therefore revered by the Dúnedain after their return; and there many of their lords and kings were buried. [Some say that the mound in which the Ring-bearer was imprisoned had been the grave of the last prince of Cardolan, who fell in the war in 1409]_

_From LOTR Appendix A; The North-kingdom and the Dúnedain._


	2. "...For They Are Subtle.."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peace didn’t last long in the Third Age. The Tale of the Guardian was based in historical events and first person accounts. This is how fairy tales are born, after all. This chapter follows Gildor’s adventures during the first half of the Third Age.

**Chapter 2. …For They Are Subtle…**

**_Imladris, year 271 of the Third Age._ **

“…You have no right!”

“Have I not, now? Look around you, Elrond! Do you expect me to believe that this is natural? That this peace, this beauty,, this feeling of being out of the grasp of time and change are the result of a particular blessing expressly bestowed upon you by the grace of Manwë?”

“Ada, look what Gildor brought to me! He says they are sea-things…”

“I am busy now, sweetheart. Go to your naneth.” The lord of the house turned again to his recently arrived guest, a cold tinge on his pleasant voice. “And what, if it is not?”

“You surprise me, son of Eärendil! After two wars fought for the possession of that which you keep --wars that laid waste to almost all that remained of the elven realms in Middle-earth and that cost more lives than you or I are willing to recall- you still pretend that you are not misusing what was entrusted to you? You are using the enemy’s own weapons to build yourself a safe haven…”

“Ada, are they fishes? Where are their mouths?”

“Not now, Arwen! Go to your naneth!” With an offended sigh, the little girl threw her nose up and stomped from the quiet garden in hurt dignity. Elrond turned an angry face to his friend. “We do not talk of such things openly, not even here, not even to me!”

“What a shame… I was sure that _you,_ of all people, would remember how bitterly Ereinion fought against Annatar’s tempting offers, and that _you,_ of all people, would not fail where he so valiantly succeeded.”

“Sauron never touched those rings, Gildor! You were there with me when Glorfindel confirmed that they were not sullied by the One.”

“Yet Celebrimbor used Sauron’s ideas and inspiration to create those Time-arresting devices…”

“But not for a purpose of dominion! These rings were wrought to bring healing to the wounds of Arda!”

“It is not our lot, Elrond, to usurp the powers of the Valar and recreate the bliss of Valinor in the shores of Hither!”

“Says one who forsook the Blessed Realm in pursuit of vain glory and bright jewels!”

“Dearly have I paid for my folly, Peredhel, but at least I can now recognize it in others.”

“Ereinion named me his regent…”

“And he handed down one of those accursed rings to you, so you would keep it hidden from the Enemy! I much doubt that he ever meant for you to wield it in such a selfish, foolish carelessness!”

“So you would have me destroy all that we have built here? Sauron’s been defeated and the One is lost… what should I do, according to you?”

Gildor shook his head. “Wise you may be, Elrond,” he began with undisguised annoyance, “but sometimes even the Wise are blinded by their own knowledge… The One is lost, you say, but how do we know that it will not be retrieved? What, then, of the Wielders of the Three? Would you allow yourselves to be enslaved, and see all those that relied on you perish under the scorching wrath of the Dark Lord or his successor?” Elrond shook his head and released a heavy sigh, visibly exasperated. He opened his mouth to retort angrily, but Gildor was not yet done. “What is it that you have built here, Peredhel, which you are so proud of? Nothing but a mock, fake rendition of Valinor that only suits your pride and your foolish attempts at preserving what cannot be preserved! You know well what you should have done long ago…”

“We did not carry the rings to Mordor… _that_ would have been sheer foolishness!”

“But you have not forgotten the road there, have you? I have been there several times since, and I have seen that the foundations of the Dark Tower still stand! The fires in Orodruin burn with malevolent glee, and the air is tarnished with a feeling of malice ready to arise anew… and still you, and Galadriel, and even Círdan, you blind yourselves to the fact that our time here is coming to an end, and that it is not for us to enjoy the peace of Valinor in Middle-earth…you are betraying your king’s trust, Elrond!”

“And you are overstepping the boundaries of our friendship. I will not tolerate your insults and accusations, Gildor,” Elrond growled, for once losing his temper. He made as if to walk away from his friend, then turned and cast him an angry look. “Ereinion entrusted me with the well-being of his people…”

“And yet you refused to step up as his successor, to take up the responsibility and the pain of being king of a dwindling people... Instead you remained in hiding in your peaceful, secret valley, building a comfortable refuge for yourself and your family, blocking out the grief and fading of the outer world and pretending that it does not exist and that it cannot reach you here!”

“I have built a refuge for those ailing and yet unwilling to depart the lands of Hither. Refusing to bring even a short span of healing to the lands for fear of something that might –or might not- come to happen would have been cowardice!" Elrond retorted heatedly. "And I doubt that Ereinion would have ever begrudged me my finally marrying and settling down, as you seem to imply,” he added in a lowered, wounded voice, barely managing to keep his anger under control. “But you are not forced to share our bliss, Gildor, although you will always be welcome here, no matter what you think of me or of my House…”

“Ah, here you are!” Celebrían’s silvery voice interrupted the argument in the most timely manner. With forced smiles that could not hide the tension between them, both lords turned to the lady of the house. “Arwen said that you were fighting, and I thought I would find you in the training grounds…But I see that it is a different kind of fencing…What is it about now?” she asked with a playful smile, passing Elrond’s rigid arm over her shoulders and looking up to the fair yet worried face of her kinsman.

“The same old issue. Gildor is accusing me of betraying my king’s legacy and corrupting myself –and those around me- with the enemy’s weapons…”

“I wonder that you can still stand our presence, Gildor,” Celebrían said dryly, casting worried looks from one to another and perceiving that, this time, the argument was serious indeed. “But you are tired from your journeys, I deem. Why don’t you postpone such serious conversations until you are rested? Cook is willing to feed you, and he has been working hard since he got wind of your arrival,” she smiled enticingly, taking one of Gildor’s long, calloused hands between hers and pressing it comfortingly. “We can talk after dinner, under the stars. What do you say?”

“Talking will not conceal the fact that you are hiding from reality, Celebrían…and shutting the grief of the world beyond the limits of your valley in a way that is unnatural,” he answered harshly, freeing his hand from her grasp brusquely. “I worry for you, my lady, for what will become of you when pain and sorrow reach you even here, as it is wont to happen one day or the other, no matter how confident your lord husband is in the power that he is so foolishly wielding?”

“Worry not, for I am no stranger to suffering, Gildor. I was not raised as Lúthien, hidden and protected from the evil of the world…But I have learned to embrace happiness when it is at hand,” she retorted in a cold voice that held all of Galadriel’s cutting, sharp edge. At his hoarse, bitter laugh she stiffened in her husband’s embrace.

“What do you know of grief and pain, child?” Gildor wondered scathingly. “You have seen your people die and lose their land, it is true, and your compassionate heart goes to those who suffer, but you know not yourself what suffering is… nor do your children. Can’t you see that this happiness is faked?” he continued almost pleadingly. “It is supported by forgery and it is heedless of the darkness and decay of the world, Celebrían, as false as was that of Doriath or Gondolin! I fear that you will all have to pay one day dearly for this blind bliss that you are enjoying now.”

“If that day comes indeed we will stand up together in pain as we do in happiness, with or without your dark warnings, which are no longer welcome here,” she shot back angrily. “You are not bound to our service or to Middle-earth, Gildor, and you are free to sail West if you so much despise the lands of Hither…or our company!”

A deep silence followed her harsh words, and even the trees stilled their voices. Then the golden-haired elf exhaled deeply and cast his friends an intense, serious glance.

“It is not for you, my lady, to grant me leave on such matter or release me from my duty, yet I will follow your advice in what is indeed your privilege,” he pronounced softly. Sketching a brief bow, he turned his back on them and disappeared towards the house.

Arwen was the last to see Gildor before he left Imladris that same day. She followed him into the stables and watched worriedly as he coaxed his tired mare out of her comfortable stall.

“Can you help me?”

He turned back to see the big eyes looking up quizzically at him. She held the bracelet of red coral he had brought for her from Edhellond between her pale fingers. With a sad, soft smile, he crouched beside her.

“Here,” he said, turning it twice around the slender wrist. “It will fit better when you grow a bit....”

“Are you sailing, Gildor?” He let escape a deep sigh and pulled her into a tight embrace.

“I will not sail without telling you, Arwen, I promise,” he offered seriously, holding her steady, dark gaze. Placing a soft kiss on her head, he mounted and rode away.

~*~*~*~ ~*~*~*~. ~*~*~*~ ~*~*~*~ 

**_West of the Weather Hills. Winter, 1411. Third Age._ **

“Had I known that this war would be fought in winter, I would have not insisted on coming….”

The man let escape a soft, dry chuckle as he trudged laboriously across the muddy, slanting terrain after the light-footed elf. “It is said that you Elves are not disturbed by cold or damp weather?” he grunted.

“Say rather that it takes longer for us to freeze to death, or die of starvation, or of wounds to the flesh,” the elf explained good-naturedly, not really aware of his companion’s difficulties. “But that does not mean that I would not give half of my possessions, and even more, to be now sitting in my father’s Hall of Fire sipping his best wine, even if it meant listening to Lindir’s most boring ballad for the tenth time, rather than climbing up and down these damp, bleak hills full of mud pools and marshes,” the young elf assured in a wistful voice as he marched on with the easy grace of his race.

A loud grunt and a blood-freezing curse made him stop and turn to offer a hand to the man, who had floundered in a treacherous mud pool he had not spotted in time in that clouded, moonless night. “We could do with a brief rest,” the elf suggested tactfully after helping the angry, muck-covered man to his feet, guiding him to take seat on a dry place under a dead tree by the side of the trail. “Here, drink this, take my cloak. We Elves are not bothered by cold or damp weather, after all,” he offered with a mischievous glint in his deep, starlit eyes. The man sighed and accepted the helping hand, the dry cloak and the heart-warming cordial gladly, too tired to try to strangle the infuriating elf.

“At times I find it hard to believe that you are a thousand years old and more, Lord Elladan,” he grunted after a short while, once he regained his breathing and a steady grip on his temper. “When Lord Glorfindel suggested that we could use your sense of diplomacy I thought that you had at least the barest hint of what that meant,” he complained harshly.

“Oh, don’t you know the saying? _Do not go to the Elves for counsel_? For your comfort, my friend, Glorfindel knew exactly what he was doing…”

“Telling the self-appointed king of Cardolan that his strategies are childish and that he better surrendered Amon Sûl now and submitted to King Araphor’s rule is what you elves understand by diplomacy?” The man now sounded honestly puzzled.

“That is exactly what Glorfindel meant by using _my_ sense of diplomacy,” Elladan explained patiently to the tired, bedraggled captain of the Dúnedain of Arthedain. “Not that it was of much help,” he admitted softly. “But at least we got to know the disposition of their waning forces and the source of their stubborn defence of the mounds of Tyrn Gorthad. It will be of great help, when they are all buried there by Angmar’s minions,” he added sadly, drinking in turn and packing the leather bound flask with a shake of his head.

“But we have forced Angmar back, with your help and that of Lindon…”

“But at what cost,” Elladan observed evenly. “Araphor is too young and his position has been weakened by this war…Arthedain’s claim over Cardolan will not be accepted… not until the last foolhardy Dúnadan there dies defending their hallowed mounds and the land becomes a barren battlefield for wraiths and houseless ones…We can help you keep your border along the Weather Hills, but that will not last long. Angmar will attack again.”

“You survived a long siege and emerged victorious. Angmar can no longer keep two fronts at the same time,” the man argued, accepting the strong hand that pulled him back up on his feet.

“We had to call out to our kin beyond the Mountains, Herion. I will encourage King Araphor to retreat from the Weather Hills and to keep an alert eye on the north. Neither Lindon nor Imladris can hold his lands for him forever…”

“Forever is a long way from now,” the man observed philosophically. “But you are right, I think. Let us get to our camp and send word to the king. If Arnor is to fall under this darkness, at least Gondor will still stand tall to keep the flame of the Men of Westernesse…”

“It is too soon to say that the line of Elendil has failed in the North, Herion. Do not give up hope yet…”

“Not while the line of Elrond, brother of Tar-Minyatur still fights with us,” the man agreed with renewed strength, starting again after the tall elf, who now walked in alert, tense silence. A sudden, cold breeze had awoken and whispered unsettlingly among the needled branches of a patch of spruce that stretched to their left. 

“You heard that?” the elf whispered after a while, forcing them to a stop. The man shook his head and waited. “There is a strange feeling in the air,” Elladan added, casting worried looks around. The trees lined the trail as it narrowed ahead, up the hillside. “As if someone...or something were watching us…” With a brief scowl he unsheathed his long sword and motioned for the man to do the same. “Better to be ready…”

They fell upon the travellers in the unruly, chaotic manner of their kin, emerging all at once from behind some boulders that had been dislodged from the hillside by a recent landslide. But a band of eight desperate orcs could prove a few orcs too many for the two solitary scouts, who fought bravely back to back, keeping their attackers at a distance while looking frantically for a way out.

After two reckless attempts at breaking man and elf’s fierce guard, two orcs lay dead and one more was seriously wounded, and the remaining five surrounded them warily, taunting them with their curved swords, but not really daring to attack them.

“They will wait until we wear ourselves out,” the man warned in a worried whisper, circling his sword protectively before him and keeping the snarling creatures at bay…for now.

“We can do the same,” Elladan grunted with dry humour, “and see who tires out first.”

“Forgive me if I do not place bets on myself…” Despite the forced lightness of his tone, the man could not entirely hide his worry. Elladan sighed.

“I am open to a different course of action,” he offered, trusting the man to choose the tactic that would suit best his waning strength. Not that they had a wide choice, he observed wryly, studying the movements of the remaining orcs.

“I think those three to your right look like easy prey,” Herion suggested in a soft voice. Having reached the same conclusion a moment earlier, Elladan nodded warily.

“While you deal with the remaining two, you most generous Dúnadan? At the count of three. One…”

It seemed that everyone had had the same idea. Before Elladan could hit two, one of the orcs surged forward and fell face first under a large, silvery shape that clung to his neck. Chaos exploded then out of the spruce. Taking advantage of the confusion, Elladan hewed and hacked at the massive orcs that were being attacked, it seemed, by their natural associates: a pack of wargs -or at least a couple of very furious ones that had come out of the forest. Amidst the growls and howls and grunts, he barely heard Herion’s warning call.

“Behind you!”

He turned around quickly to find himself faced with one last orc ready to cleave his skull with a big axe. Raising his sword by impulse to deflect the blow that was unnaturally slow to fall, Elladan caught the glint of something silvery protruding from the orc’s chest. As the creature crumbled down, Elladan had a brief glimpse of a dark silhouette standing behind the falling orc, and a pair of unbearably bright eyes in a pale face under a hood. With a smooth, almost effortless pull, the dark shape wrenched his sword free from the dead orc’s body and disappeared swiftly towards the trees in a billow of dark clothes that revealed for a short moment a single braid of golden hair, as the stranger jumped onto the lower branches of the closest spruce tree. Following a soft whistle, the silvery creatures Elladan had taken for wargs and a large, silvery coated one that moved like a wolf, abandoned their well–earned, grim spoils and shot past him towards the thicket in which the stranger had disappeared.

“What on Arda was that?”

They stood panting in the suddenly silent clearing, surrounded by corpses. The waning moon chose that moment to peek from behind a shredded cloud and its pale light glistened briefly in the dark pools of orc blood.

“Where did he come from?” Elladan could not shake away that eerie feeling. That orc should have split his head open… But there he was, unscathed except for a handful of scratches that did not bear mentioning and surrounded by the severely damaged corpses of eight orcs. He tried to blink away the image of the bright, blazing eyes that had so briefly met his. He would have sworn that they belonged to a Firstborn…except for the depths of darkness that he had glimpsed in them. He shivered at the memory.

“Elladan…”

The man’s tone jolted the elf from his troubled musings. Herion had been searching the area and pointed now behind the big boulders with a puzzled expression on his face. In a few long strides, Elladan reached his side and exchanged an equally confused look with his companion. Four more orcs lay dead there, their throats cut open.

“Fangs and knife,” Herion determined after a brief inspection. “They thought that eight of them would be enough to finish us off…and if they were not… well, these four would have surely proved our ruin,” he added in a low, ominous voice. “It seems that we owe our lives to the Wolf-lord…”

“The Wolf-lord?”

“Have you not heard the tales? The Dúnedain of Cardolan have long sung of a wild pack that fights along their numbers…guided by a dangerous lead wolf that at times takes human shape…Although he had never before been spotted this north.”

“I should pay more attention to Men’s tales,” Elladan acknowledged dryly while squatting to check the damp ground. “One never knows when a legend might emerge out of songs to save your life…”

“Some say that it is the spirit of a powerful warrior…but you elves do not believe in spirits, it is told,” the man added, taking seat on one of the boulders to avoid disturbing what tracks might still remain. Elladan cast him a curious glance.

“We are not afraid of them, which is different.” He opened his mouth to add something and then shut it, still shaken by the darkness in that stranger’s blazing eyes and the eerie feeling that he had felt short before the attack. He turned his attention back to the ground and after a short while he shook his head. “How many wolves did you count, Herion?”

“I was quite busy, but I am sure that I saw two…”

“So did I. Yet I count at least five different trails here… leading nowhere. Apparently they should be still around…Unless they jumped to the tree tops, as their human companion did…”

“You are joking…” the man cast a quick, nervous glance around.

“Come and see for yourself…Well, your Wolf-lord walks like a man and takes to the trees like no wolf could…but he hunts with a pack with the rare ability of vanishing out into thin air…”

Following an unspoken agreement, they talked no more of the strange pack and set themselves to dispose of the bodies after despoiling them of their weapons. Arien was tingeing the eastern sky when Elladan stopped picking up an armful of firewood and straightened up, looking west intently. A moment after a slow smile distended his stern features.

“Breakfast is coming,” he grinned to his companion, and dropping his load he sat on one of the boulders and motioned for his companion to do the same. Half an hour later they heard the soft call of a wren, which was quickly answered by Herion. Shortly after that, a rhythmic _clop-clop_ announced the arrival of a mounted patrol.

“Well-met, Hadron!” Herion greeted his second gleefully as his men emerged from the western road. “You are in time to earn your breakfast!” 

“I am glad to see you two alive,” the other smiled, signalling briefly to his men. With silent efficiency, the Dúnedain took up the grim task. “When we heard of a band of orcs that had come from beyond the hills and got word that you had not yet been sighted we decided to take maters into our hands,” Herion’s second explained, dismounting and casting an appreciative look at the battlefied. “We finished them off yesterday, but then we heard the wargs cry and feared that some had escaped our net, so we started after them,” he continued as he emptied his pack and managed to present a passable breakfast. “What happened to your horses?” he asked then with undisguised curiosity, after making sure that neither his captain nor the elf-lord’s scratches needed immediate attention.

“You do not want to know,” Elladan grunted after exchanging a warning look with Herion. “But we saw no wargs…”

The expression on Hadron’s face was definitely puzzled after Herion finished explaining their adventure between mouthfuls.

“The Wolf-lord?” he wondered incredulously. “Did you know that some say he is the ghost of Elendil, Lord Elladan?”

“Well, we family have always looked after one another,” Elladan shot back with forced lightness, making those closer to them laugh heartily. “That would explain a number of things…except for the tracks that this pretend spirit left on the ground. Now, my lords, if we are done with pleasantries and children’s tales, we still have a message to deliver to King Araphor…”

Leaving behind a small patrol on foot, the Dunedain and the Elf-lord rode away to the camp in Fornost, where the king awaited their report on the situation along the borders. It was late in the evening before Elladan could finally find time to try and put his thoughts in order as he took care of his weapons while listening to Elrohir and Erestor’s conversation.

“I think that Angmar has been subdued for now, although I agree with you, Elladan, that this is only a temporary respite,” Erestor observed tiredly. They were sitting on their cots in the tent they shared, resting after a long day of meetings and discussions. Cardolan was as good as lost, barren and deserted, yet the threat of Angmar had been stemmed for the time being. “As soon as Glorfindel returns from Annúminas I think that we can go back home safely,” the counsellor added with a wide, wistful smile.

“You are no longer used to the harsh conditions of camp life, Erestor?” Elrohir chuckled. “I heard that you and Herion lost two horses and had an interesting encounter last night, brother, what was all that about?” he asked then in curiosity. Shrugging briefly, Elladan embarked on a sceptic account of last night’s incident.

“Elendil’s ghost? That would be news indeed,” Elrohir laughed. “What do you make of that, Erestor?” The stern counsellor looked thoughtful.

“These lands have always been strange,” he finally admitted. “Many of our kin strayed here during the Long March, and others came back from over the Ered Luin after the first battle under the stars, to linger here long before your ancestors forged their infamous jewels and their no less infamous quarrels,” he added with a twisted grin. Elrond’s twin sons rolled their eyes and groaned in pretended exasperation, as they did every time they were reminded of how old their former tutor was and how much he had seen and gone through.

“And the mounds of Tyrn Gorthad?” Elladan inquired. “The Dúnedain hold them sacred, but I deem that they already were so before the Men of the West returned to Middle-earth…”

“They were, indeed,” Erestor acknowledged with a smile. Battles and battlefields were the only subjects that had ever fuelled Elladan’s interest towards history. “They were hallowed tombs even before we returned here after the drowning of Beleriand. As darkness began to stir in the first half of the past age strange, angry things awoke in those forests around the mounds. I even remember that one of our patrols was once attacked by a whole marching forest and almost cast into the marshes,” he chuckled, briefly lost in fond memories. “They had to fight their way back with torches! These lands have seen many people and strange things, not all of them evil, not all of them friendly to the Firstborn…but I had never heard before about something like that tale that you bring…”

“It must have been a stray warrior, or one of the few faithful Hillmen intent on taking revenge on the orcs…they have inflicted much damage in their villages,” Elrohir suggested. Elladan nodded, desperately trying to convince himself.

“Sure,” he acknowledged with a forced smile. “Whatever it was, it was timely indeed!”

Later that night, Elladan awoke to the distant, forlorn howl of a lone wolf. Picking up his cloak, he slipped silently outside the tent and stood in the clouded night, listening.

“The Wolf-lord is calling, my brother?”

Elladan groaned at his not too subtle twin. “It is not a matter for jokes, Elrohir,” he sighed, after returning a friendly punch on his nosy brother’s forearm. “There was an eerie, dangerous feeling around them…and his eyes…”

“You do not think that he was a man?”

“I doubt it. His eyes blazed like Glorfindel’s….”

“An Elf, then? But not one of the Avari, not if his eyes blazed…”

“I do not know. There was a deep darkness… a bottomless void there that frightened me. I… perhaps this is folly, but I was reminded of the Houseless ones…”

“You have never seen one,” Elrohir stated flatly. “And what’s more, this one had a body, and he left a clear trail, you said…”

“He did,” Elladan admitted, not mentioning the dissapearing wolves on purpose. “I know not what to think, Elrohir, but it haunts my dreams, and yet not with fear but with despair…”

The wolf cried out again, but this time he got an answer. Soon the wild beauty of a whole pack readying for the hunt filled the night.

“Well, he has found his pack, it seems,” Elrohir smiled as the song faded away. “You need your rest, Elladan. As soon as we are back home I will raid the library and emerge an expert on houseless ones and all kinds of wraiths,” he offered with a mischievous grin. Elladan sighed. His brother had always turned to their father’s library when problems aroused. He wanted other type of answers.

“And I will question Glorfindel. I bet it will be faster…”

“You may be right,” Elrohir admitted. “If there is one who knows everything about being dead that is him, brother, although he has never been known to engage in open conversation on the subject. I wish you good luck on that!”

**_Tower Hills. Spring, 1415 Third Age._ **

The wanderer shook his cloak and smiled as a cloud of sparrows fought for the crumbles of his meal. Bending stiffly, he picked up his battered hat, his pack and his wooden staff and bowed courteously to a wren that studied him seriously from a nearby bush.

“I think I can see my way now, my friend, you need not go with me in there.” The bird tilted its head, listening intently and then flew away in a frantic, feathered blur. With a deep sigh, the wanderer put his hat on his head and made ready to face the last part of his trip.

For long years, even before the evil creatures from Angmar began to slip into the land, he had heard strange tales that he had dismissed as legends forged out of ignorance. He had travelled far south as well, and had been away from those lands for too long. But now, after his sojourn in Mithlond and his long conversations with the Shipwright about the evil that spread from the east and north, and the extraordinary tales that the men repeated along the roads and in every inn from Bree to Fornost, Mithrandir was ready to explore the mysteries of the Tower Hills.

A dark, menacing fence of twisted trees stood before him. A mass of mingled branches and viciously sharpened hawthorns that grew everywhere barred the entrance and discouraged visitors.

That forest had grown almost out of nothing, as tales went, and had thickened and deepened so quickly in a few sun-rounds that nobody now remembered that within it rose a string of naked hills and that on their bare crowns, hidden from sight at a distance, sheltered by the tall, dense canopy, stood the white towers that the last elven king had raised for his friend, the tall king of Men who had come out of the Sea under the wings of mighty winds and a powerful wave. Those were children and old crones’ tales, and nobody ever listened to them, or wanted to remember. That suited the forest, it seemed. 

With a sad sigh and a soft word, the wanderer lifted his staff and a dim glow shone briefly on its top. As if burnt by a sudden flame, the thorny vines and the twisted branches opened a wide passage, keeping a cautious distance from the apparently harmless stranger, who bowed with unfailing courtesy before the tense, expectant forest, and entered it with sure foot. Even the warped, ill-intentioned roots that from time to time emerged from the ground and trapped animals or occasional wanderers remained hidden at the stranger’s passing.

“Well, well, well,” the wizard wondered, stopping after a long climb to regain his breathing and take a calculating look around. The forest trembled in barely contained wrath and tension, and he could feel the rotten spirits of certain trees and other, more powerful presences that withdrew in anger before him.

“Show me,” he whispered, casting a look up and around. The forest was unnaturally dark and silent, and no ray of sun ever got through the dense canopy of black-hearted trees. Patiently, he waited in silence until a soft murmur began to stir ominously, coming from the distant heart of the forest and gaining in intensity as it climbed upwards. Suddenly, the branches shook and quailed, though no wind was felt. A cold, invisible stream drifted through the forest and surrounded the stranger, who stood calmly amidst a whirlwind of leaves, sticks and other, more dangerous things tossed at him.

“Show me!” he commanded again in a powerful voice that spoke words that had not been heard for long ages in those lands, raising his staff over his head. As sudden as it had formed, the whirlwind died at the wizard’s feet and a wide tunnel opened slowly before him, showing a green sward at the base of a stone tower at the other end. Casting a wary look behind, the wizard lowered his staff and followed the path until he emerged from the dangerous, teeming forest into the peaceful, quiet landscape.

Before him stood the White Towers as he had seen them in a book in Círdan’s old library. The strange forest surrounded the wide sward before them in a wide angle, and then took a bend following the crown of the hills, descending abruptly behind the tallest tower. Beyond there grew a mass of trees and a strange mist that clouded the spring sun and the distant glistening of the Sea. Impressed by the silence and the feeling of agelessness that pervaded the place, the wizard walked quietly towards the closest tower and pushed its battered door open.

The shabby, abandoned inside belied the magnificent architecture. A coat of dust covered the scarce furniture and the floor in the main chamber, and the hearth looked as if it had not been used for a long time. The wizard paced the chamber in vain search of any signal of its dweller’s identity. Everything there spoke of decay and despair. Leaning forth he picked up a frayed cloak and left it on a bed that barely deserved that name –a pile of dry and withered brambles covered by a tattered, grimy blanket. It was clear that someone, if only from time to time, spent some time there. Idly, he opened a wooden box forgotten on a table that barely stood on three legs and could not hold back a loud sneeze at the cloud of dust that emerged from it. A gentle, almost too polite noise made him tense as he wiped his nose. He turned around slowly, suddenly aware that he was not alone.

“Good day, my friend,” the wizard offered in his polite, calm manner. “I was not aware that you were around…”

The pair of amber, intelligent eyes followed him impassively. The wolf was massive, and not a muscle tensed in his powerful body as he watched the intruder intently, standing on the threshold of a side chamber that the wizard had not yet explored. Cautiously, Mithrandir took an uncertain step towards it. A soft, warning rumble made him stop.

“You do not want me to enter there, I see…Perhaps in the other towers?” he asked softly.

The wolf turned his ears briefly and took two slow, almost lazy paces towards the wizard, and then two more, slowly but surely shepherding him towards the main door. With a brief glance at the sharp fangs that the creature let show almost carelessly in an ostentatious yawn, Mithrandir decided that he was willing to obey.

A sudden, cold fear grabbed him as soon as he walked again into the open air, and he could see that the wolf now snarled warningly, though not at him. Coming out of the forest, or perhaps from the other towers, a pack of black, fiery-eyed wolves was slowly surrounding them. But those were no common wolves, the wizard understood, almost breathless by a sudden wave of threat and malice that seeped from their darkened souls and that stirred a deeply buried memory in him.

The wolf at his side growled menacingly, and the other creatures stopped in their advance but sat to watch them intently. The wise creature fixed Mithrandir in a keen, amber gaze and for a brief moment the wizard felt a familiar presence in his mind. With a curt nod, he raised his staff and began to walk slowly but firmly towards the tunnel that still gaped open amidst the menacing trees, feeling the eyes of those malevolent creatures fixed on him. Before he entered the forest again he risked a quick glance back. The dark creatures had narrowed the circle around the wolf in a clearly menacing manner. The wolf stood amidst them with his fur on edge, looking almost twice his size, snapping occasionally when one of the creatures approached him tauntingly.

As the forest began to close in against him, hindering the view, Mithrandir could have sworn that the wolf was shinning with a bright light that was soon supported by another, clearer one seeping from a taller silhouette that had come out from the Tower to stand on two legs beside the wolf. The distinctive –if worryingly weakened- song of an elven soul reached the wizard like a blow of a sweet-scented breeze, as the newcomer joined the wolf and with a wide gesture of his long arm swept the dark creatures away.

Following an irresistible impulse, the wizard tried to retrace his steps, eager to meet that Firstborn who lived alone in those strange surroundings. As if sensing his presence, the mysterious elf raised his arm towards the forest and it was as if a sudden storm had been released. The tunnel closed down quickly before him and the trees turned their wrath against the stranger. 

Wielding his staff before him and protecting his face as best as he could from the branches that slashed and whipped at him in mad rage, the wizard broke into a wild race, desperately aiming for a way out. Tripping and stumbling downhill and covered in scratches, he finally staggered out of the dark forest and dropped himself on a welcoming patch of soft grass, breathing raggedly 

A short while later, his composure mostly regained, he rested his back against a sun-warmed boulder, brought his pipe from a pouch in his belt and lit it methodically, drawing pensively at it for a time and puffing out its calming, comforting mists. Finally, he shook his head and raised his bushy brows towards the wren, who watched him expectantly from top of the rock.

“A very strange place indeed, my friend,” he mused.

**TBC**


	3. "...And Quick to Anger."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The true, sorrowful story of the Guardian at last. Gildor gets to experience a wizard’s subtleness and quickness to anger.

**Chapter 3. …And Quick To Anger.**

**_The Big Inn in Bree. Autumn, 1425, Third Age._ **

“…And a good thing it is, I say. I never felt safe knowing that creature was on the loose out there…”

“Of course you were not, Master Fearn, since you are so adept at relieving travellers of unnecessary burdens…”

“We heard that your father had a not-so-pleasant encounter once with the Wolf-lord…”

“And that you once ran without pause from Bree to Archet, after you bumped into a pack of wolves, not noticing that you had left behind a whole sack of honestly obtained goods…”

“Are you calling me a thief, Master Underhill?”

The common room in the Big Inn in Bree was full of customers on that cold, late autumn night. The short, dark man called Fearn challenged the round, red-faced patron who had spoken last. A group of villagers had dared contest Fearn’s celebrating of the news that a band of brigands had been seen dragging a wounded wolf they claimed was the famed, mysterious Wolf-lord who had become legend during the war against Angmar. Of course, that had stirred a string of old tales and accusations.

“Not even in my dreams, Master Fearn,” the red-faced man retorted evenly, with the faintest trace of mockery in his voice. “Although one must wonder why an honest man would scamper away before the Wolf-lord, leaving behind his possessions…”

“It is clear that you have never run into that devilish creature…”

“On the contrary, I was once saved from a group of orcs by a strange, glittering wild creature that was followed by a pack of wolves…But of course that was during the war, you made sure you were not seen around then…”

“Well, well,” the innkeeper chimed in before the tempers got too hot. “Here is another round of my best ale. Where did you say that these men caught the Wolf-lord, Master Fearn?”

“I ran into them east of the mounds of Tyrn Gorthad, a day and half from here,” the swarthy man admitted half-heartedly and then raised his pitcher. “To the wolf hunters,” he drank. One or two of the patrons reluctantly echoed his toast, looking more worried than they wanted to show.

A dense silence followed, until a stranger wrapped in a tattered cloak and covered with a funnily pointed hat raised his voice. “I suppose that they intended to bring it to the king?”

“They were heading north, that is all I could gather…”

“You were very brave, Master Fearn, to wander into the enemy’s territory and gather such news from men bold enough to capture one of Angmar’s most feared enemies,” the old man who had spoken observed evenly. “How did you manage to escape unseen?” At that the short, irate man blushed furiously.

“I do not have to answer to your accusations!” he claimed heatedly. “You are a stranger here!”

“I apologize,” the stranger answered calmly. “I am heading east myself, that is why I asked. I never meant to suggest that you were in league with the enemy, although it seems that you took it otherwise, I am surprised to see,” he explained meekly, though there was a strange, keen flash of anger in his deep eyes. Trapped, the dark man took further offence.

“I do not have to stand this conversation,” he spat. “No one here knows you or what you want, asking such questions!” And with a gesture of contempt towards the old man he dropped a few coins on the table and left the common room at a hurried pace.

“A dark man to all purposes,” one of the patrons sentenced with open disapproval. “Who knows what dark dealings he had with those strangers?” 

“The Wolf-lord once scared the life out of him,” another explained, “and forced him to leave behind a drove of mares that he had _borrowed_ from old Stonehill’s stables… the old man will not be happy to learn that the Wolf-lord has been caught in the end...”

“Fearn only said that he saw a band of men dragging a wolf…he is too coward to even approach them…”

“Well, you know what they say, that the Wolf-lord takes the shape of a big wolf at times…”

For the rest of the night the big hall would echo with tales of encounters with the mysterious creature that had haunted the roads of Arnor and Cardolan for years uncounted; protecting solitary travellers and farmers, righting wrongs, keeping thieves and enemies of all kinds at bay and slitting orcs and wargs’ throats during the bitter war against Angmar. With a worried sigh, the old stranger with the funny hat stood up, picked up his staff and slipped outside unnoticed. Mounting his young, skittish mare, he rode fast into the starry night.

**_Two Days Later._ **

On the second day of pursuit, after dismissing his mare for the forest was now too dense, Mithrandir ran into a gory clearing in which a fierce struggle had taken place. Three human bodies lay around the remains of a fire, their chests ripped open as if by sharp fangs and their bowels scattered on the forest floor. A fourth had apparently ran away, chased by what looked like a pack of wolves by their prints, while someone on two feet followed across the trees, leaving behind a trail of blood.

The forest was tense with expectation and a heavy weight of malice as he pushed ahead, until he reached a dead end: the wolf prints he followed seemed to vanish in the air. He looked around, confused, and listened to the concerned whispers of the trees.

“What does this mean?” the wizard pondered with growing uneasiness. Summoning all his courage, he resumed his chase, aware that the invisible evil now followed him and surrounded him on all sides.

He caught up with them as dawn drew in; a dishevelled group of five dangerous looking men armed with clubs and short swords brooding over a dying fire, one of them heavily bloodied and bandaged, and two more keeping nervous watch over a big wolf trussed up like a bundle of hay, its eyes closed and its breathing disturbingly slow and laborious. With a soft rustle of evil glee, the dark shadow that had followed him from the clearing settled down as well, expectant. Making his mind up, the wizard entered the clearing.

“Well-met, friends,” he greeted in his most mild, pleasant voice. “Can you spare a bit of bread and a place by your fire for an old traveller?”

Frightened, the men jumped on their feet, wielding their clubs and swords. Their tempers were not improved when they discovered that they had been startled by an old, inoffensive-looking man.

“Come and warm yourself, old one,” one of them groaned brusquely at last. “But first tell us who you are and what errand brings you to these forsaken lands…”

“I am a traveller, as yourselves… although I seem to have lost my way. I was headed towards the dwarf road, but somehow I must have missed my course…”

“It is way south,” another grumbled, casting nervous looks around.

“My thanks,” Mithrandir nodded courteously, taking seat by the fire and dragging the men’s attention towards him. “I heard that King Araphor is fond of wild beasts,” he ventured in an innocent voice, nodding casually towards the wounded creature.

“He will not complain then, when a pack of wargs rips his limbs off and tears his heart from his chest,” one of the men, with cruel eyes and a twisted grin chuckled, then spat on the fire contemptuously. The rest let escape a chorus of nasty laughter that sent a shiver down the wizard’s spine.

“I take it that you are not carrying that poor beast to the king, then,” he continued in an even voice. “But let me tell you that it would be a good idea. He pays good gold…”

“He has not gold enough to pay for this,” the man with the cruel eyes retorted, walking up to the wolf with a muredrous expression on his face and kicking it savagely. “This is our bait for a bigger prize,” he explained. “We are dragging that cursed Wolf-lord out of hiding.... and we will be handsomely paid once our master lays his hands on him,” he added with cruel delight. “But perhaps you carry enough gold for us to start celebrating…” he added in a soft, menacing manner, walking back to the fire and casting a searching, malicious look at the wizard. Mithrandir sighed and stood up tiredly, taking two steps back and leaning heavily on his staff.

“I am an old traveller and I carry no gold…but my word could deliver you from from the dark shadows that haunt you. I saw what the Wolf-lord did to your fellows back in that clearing…” he offered warningly. As if conjured by his voice, an unnatural breeze spoke ominous, forgotten words among the trees, circling the menacing men briefly and then returning to hide in the forest.

“Who are you? What do you want?” Panicked by the evil that had rushed towards them from the dark, the bandits junped to his feet wielding their weapons. Mithrandir wielded his staff before him in protection. A smothered growl and a shout, followed by a gurgling noise, broke the impending confrontation.

“To me! The wolf! to...”

The four men forgot the wizard and ran to the other side of the fire where one of their fellows, covered in blood, struggled to stop the brutal sweeps of a shimmering, wild figure that soon pierced him through with a deft thrust of his steel. The second brigand lay dead a few paces away. Three more fell at once on the swordsman, who quickly overpowered two of them. He was about to confront the third when the tall man with the cruel eyes, who seemed to be in charge, shouted harshly.

“Stop it!” he warned, his curved, short sword pressing on the helpless wolf’s throat. The wild stranger hesitated for a brief moment, and that was all that the remaining bandit needed to fell him with a well-aimed blow of his club.

“We need him alive,” the tall man remarked quite callously as his fellow beat the fallen creature repeatedly. The smile on his face froze as he saw the menacing expression on the old man’s face.

“I’d suggest that you deliver both under my custody,” Mithrandir warned, advacing on them. Underneath the grime, blood and rags that covered the wretched creature he could still perceive the glimmer of a Firstborn.

“Bind him, Rovgar,” the chieftain ordered in a harsh voice, throwing a length of rope to the one who had been beating the elf while keeping an eye on the wizard.

“Leave him alone and run away, Rovgar,” Mithrandir advised. An ominous murmur reached them from the forest, too close for comfort. “That which you fear is getting closer,” he warned. The man cast nervous looks around.

“I do not like this, Brandag,” the man whined. The one with the bandaged arm, who had kept himself away from the fight, looked around frantically for a hiding place.

“Not without our prisoner, Angmar will reward us richly!” the chieftain grunted, walking to the motionless elf. Picing up the discarded rope, he began to tie his arms.

“Leave him alone, Brandag, or you will know my wrath!” In a few long strides Mithrandir was before the chieftain, wielding his staff before his face. The outlaw jumped forward, thrusting upwards under the wizard’s guard with his sword. Mithrandir managed to block the vicious cut and hit back with his staff.

A sudden burst of light and energy coursed through the man, who shouted in terror and dropped the short sword. He stood still for a brief moment, his eyes wide open in a horror stricken face and then crumbled down slowly, the elf’s sword stuck between his shoulder blades.

The wizard barely noticed the wounded elf dragging himself towards the trussed-up wolf. and finally collapsing beside it. An eerie, angered onslaught of invisible terror rushed towards them from the forest and drowned the cries of the remaining bandits. Wielding his staff firmly, Mithrandir readied himself to fend off the assault.

~*~*~

**_A year later. Imladris, late spring._ **

“May Manwë grant me the eyes of his eagles…could this be true?”

“It is, captain; unbelievable as it might seem…”

The two elves on duty by the Bruinen glanced thoughtfully at the travellers about to cross the Ford.

“There is nothing unbelievable in Middle-earth, Echnaur,” the captain retorted with dry humour. He shook his head and released a long breath. “Ride home as fast as you can and inform Lord Elrond that Mithrandir is bringing a guest…”

~*~*~

The two visitors rode undisturbed for the whole day. As they approached the Last Homely House the Elf began to squirm on his steed, sensing the furtive glances and the rumours caused by their passage. At the sound of hoofs coming from beyond a bend on the road, he cast a brief, pleading glance at his travel companion and made his horse stop. With a calm nod, Mithrandir nudged his mount to a stop as well and placed a comforting hand on his shoulder.

“Well-met, Mithrandir, and more than ever because of the long-missed guest that you bring with you!” The joyous ring of a silvery voice reached them as a group of three riders hurried towards them. Gildor scowled as Glorfindel’s deep, knowing glance was fixed on him even as he addressed Mithrandir. He nodded curtly to his former comrade, not meeting his searching glance.

“Well-met, Gildor, many sun-rounds have passed since you last graced Imladris with your presence,” Glorfindel added in a soft voice, advancing until he could grab his friend’s arm in a friendly grip. Unnerved, Gildor shook off the hand and kneed his horse to move away.

“And still everything looks the same,” he snapped harshly. “Are we allowed to continue?” he asked then, still not meeting Glorfindel’s eyes.

“Of course. Follow me.” Exchanging a quick glance with Mithrandir, Glorfindel waved for his companions to lead the way down to the deep valley.

Gildor barely listened to Glorfindel’s distended chatter as their horses picked up the shortest way towards the house. Unbidden, his last argument with Elrond echoed again in his mind after having been buried in his memory for a long time. And still the effects of what had caused it were as present as ever. Despite all that had come to pass, Gildor still considered that keeping Celebrimbor’s rings after the fall of Sauron had been a big mistake. And Círdan’s decision to surrended Narya only supported his belief.

Distracted by his glum thoughts Gildor allowed his horse to follow the others, until a well-known voice shook him from his thoughts. Surprised, he looked around to see that they had reached the stables and that his old friend -and rightful liege-lord- stood before his horse with an expectant, friendly look on his face.

“Welcome back to Imladris, Gildor,” Elrond offered softly, studying him intently as he dismounted. “It has been so long that we thought you had finally sailed West…”

With a great effort Gildor returned Elrond’s embrace as best as he could, murmuring his thanks while trying to withstand the probing healer’s gaze that raked him as Elrond took note of his paleness and his weakened state.

“Let us go inside, you both look worn out,” the lord of the house suggested kindly after embracing the wizard. “Elladan and Elrohir are abroad with the patrols, but they will be back home soon, won’t they, Glorfindel?” Elrond explained as he led the way up the steep stairs, while Gildor, Glorfindel and Mithrandir followed. “As soon as word came of your arrival, Cook began preparing a great feast…” 

Absurdly, Gildor found himself tensing in sympathy at the obvious nervousness that oozed from his host. It wasn’t like Elrond to give into such fits of anxious, nonsensical chatter. The reason became clear as they reached the bottom of the stairs.

“No wanderer has ever been denied shelter in the Last Homely House,” a beautiful voice reached them then from top.

“Celebrían...”

“Fear not, my lord; I do not intend to break our custom.” There she stood, dressed in white and green, looking down on them with the imposing grace that she had inherited from both her parents. Her starlit eyes looked past Gildor without acknowledging his presence, her features stern, her face set.

Overwhelmed by guilt, he bowed his head, awaiting judgement.

“But you will excuse my presence while _this_ wanderer remains in the House. You are welcome as always, Mithrandir, though I cannot say the same of the company you bring with you,” she added glacially. With a curt bow she turned around and disappeared in a billow of silks, revealing a grimacing, worried-looking Erestor standing behind.

“I could not… she was…”

“I know, Erestor. I will talk to her…”

“Welcome back, Gildor. I had your old chamber readied…”

“Get some rest, my friend, I’ll send someone to pick you up for dinner…”

“I need not a guide in your house, Elrond,” Gildor managed in a calm voice. “By your leave…” Not meeting concerned, sympathetic eyes, he climbed the last steps and strode away purposefully. “I will let you know if I need anything, Erestor,” he groaned, closing the door before the solicitous counsellor. Exhausted, he let his pack fall, dropped himself on the comfortable bed and drifted off almost immediately.

He awoke with a start to a firm rap on the door. It took him a few moments to recognize his surroundings. The evening was well in, he noticed, judging by the dim light that filtered through the dense canopy that shaded his window. “Come in!” he sighed, swinging his legs off the bed and rubbing his forehead tiredly.

The door opened and a dark haired elleth came in, carrying a tray with food and drink.

“You missed the evening meal,” she chided gently, stealing curious glances at him. Gildor just shrugged and then recalled his manners.

“I am…I do not like crowded places,” he mumbled in apology, stretching his long limbs and getting on his feet slowly. “But I appreciate your thoughtfulness,” he added as the elleth placed the tray on the table and turned deep, piercing eyes to him.

“Naneth is not angry with you, Gildor. She has been blaming herself all these _ennin_ ,” she informed him evenly. His head shot up at this. He cast an intense, searching glance at the tall, adult elleth before him.

“Arwen?” he managed in a low, awed voice and then opened his arms as she hurried into his embrace, laughing like the child she had been when he had last seen her. “Arwen, is it you?”

“Of course it is me!” she laughed, extending a long, elegant hand before his face. “Do you remember this?” she asked softly. Gildor took the pale hand in his and studied the bracelet of red coral that adorned the slender wrist. It had been his present from his last trip to Edhellond and he remembered fitting it with two turns on a child’s wrist that was too thin. He smiled slowly and nodded silently, meeting her deep, compassionate eyes. “I knew that you would not sail without telling me...but we missed you sorely.”

“Your naneth made it plain that I was not welcome here…” He let go of her hand and walked to the window, fighting memories that he did not want to confront.

“She regretted bitterly her harsh words…For long she questioned travellers and scouts, and asked Círdan for news…until she convinced herself that you had been killed…or something worse,” she added in a lowered voice.

“Worse?”

“She feared that you might have _faded,”_ she pronounced with almost reverential respect. “Succumbed to grief,” she explained then, mistaking his blank expression.

“Your naneth knows nothing of grief –or its effects,” he spat accusingly, and then winced at her pained, surprised grimace. “I am sorry that I caused you to worry,” he added quickly, feeling a stab of bitter remorse. “But…”

“You need not apologize,” she interrupted him, shaking her head slowly. “Not now, at least. I always knew that you would be back… Eat, sleep and recover your strength. There will be time enough for tales when you are rested, for you have much to tell us about!” she warned with a clear laugh, standing on her toes to place a soft kiss on his tired face. “Be welcome home, Uncle.” Her voice was so sweet and her tone so sincere that for a brief while he allowed himself to believe that he was, indeed, home.

“You are a blessing to your adar’s house, Arwen,” Gildor nodded gratefully as she walked away, a true smile now on his face. She turned on the threshold to cast him a knowing wink.

“The baths will be empty by now,” she added, tapping her nose with her finger and closing the door before he could throw something at her.

Still chuckling, Gildor picked at the meal she had brought him and soon found himself devouring it with appetite. Once he was finished, he chose towels from a neat stack on a side table and followed Arwen’s suggestion.

Back from the baths and feeling somewhat renewed despite a forced attempt at conversation by a surprised guard he had ran into, Gildor stood for a brief moment on the path, looking up to the naked stars for comfort. Suddenly, a harsh voice coming from indoors reached him.

“You speak of your own grief, Lady Celebrían, disregarding the many trials that life throws at those treading the ways of Middle-earth, out of this secluded valley…”

Quietly, he rounded a blossoming flowerbed and a dense hedge and dragged himself along the wall to a corner of the main building. The voices reached him more clearly there, across the airy corridors that led to the Hall of Fire.

“Do not meddle in family affairs, Mithrandir,” Celebrían answered in her coldest voice. “For they are more twisted than what they might seem to your eye…”

“Family affairs in the House of Finwë are known to have brought great anguish and sorrow to the Firstborn…”

“And glorious deeds as well…”

“And still to my eye this seems more a question of wounded pride preventing you to reflect about the truth in Gildor’s well-intentioned advice…while you thoroughly ignore the price that he has paid for such blunt honesty.”

“You may be one of the Wise, Mithrandir, but that does not grant you permission to stick your nose in matters which are not of your concern,” she insisted firmly. “And you know not _everything_ …” her cold voice trembled briefly. “I appreciate your concern, my friend,” she said then in a softer voice. “Have a good night.”

A brief, proud smile crossed Gildor’s features at her firm stand, while at the same time a sharp pain stabbed his insides at the reminder of the love and friendship that he had squandered more than a thousand sun-rounds ago. Lost between two worlds, and even to himself, he had for long forgotten who he was and what he had left behind. Not for the first time since Mithrandir had rescued him from the darkness -and other, worse things- that had been about to swallow him, he wondered if it had been worth the effort. Overwhelmed by renewed grief and sure that sleep wold elude him again that night, he looked for a secluded place in that garden where he could star-gaze undisturbed, and mourn all that he had lost.

~*~*~

“I am not angry with you.”

Celebrían shook her head while she finished adjusting the laces of her tunic. She sat again on their bed and leaned back to kiss her husband, who still fought the early morning fogs of bliss.

“That is so kind of you… And I am not angry with you, either, for bringing him to our house,” she chuckled, making as if to rise again. An arm shot out from under the blanket and circled her waist in a firm, warrior grip, pulling her back to the warm nest she had just left. Willingly, she allowed him to drag her back to his protective embrace.

“He has gone through more than we can imagine,” he whispered into her silvery head. “I have seen it in his eyes…his fëa is weakened, almost broken…”

“I do not want to discuss this right now, Elrond,” she whispered, softly but firmly. She sat up again and began to accommodate her clothes, sensing the waves of sympathy coming from her husband. Rearranging her grip on her emotions she sighed and turned to meet his worried face. “I am relieved that he is alive…but I am not going to forgive him for the pain and misery of a thousand sun-rounds _so_ easily!” she added, waving a warning finger before Elrond’s face. Again, he used his quick reflexes to capture it and kiss it softly.

“I trust your generous and kind heart, my lady.”

“You know you can,” she agreed, freeing her finger and running it smoothly along his beloved face, doubting the wisdom of abandoning their bed that early. “Don’t go anywhere,” she suggested with a wicked wink. “Let’s have breakfast in the terrace.”

With her course firmly decided, she paced the deserted corridors of the family wing and took a preferred shortcut across one of her lavishly blossomed gardens to reach the kitchens by the back door.

“…But he is covered in scars! I met him in the baths last night!”

“And don’t you think that someone would have recognized him, had he indeed fought with the armies of Cardolan as you believe?”

Celebrían shook her head as she walked unseen past a couple of guards on their way to the training grounds. Rumour was already spreading about the new arrival. Determined not to allow anything spoil her morning, she pushed open the kitchen back door and crossed the larder in time to hear Cook’s aides saying their goodbyes.

“Take care, my lord!”

“Return soon, you were dearly missed!”

The kitchen front door had just closed when she emerged form the larder.

“He is so wan and thin!”

“And he looks so sad! He seems like a ghost of himself!”

“Do not say such things… Good morning, Celebrían!” Cook’s wife, who was the Housekeeper, greeted her. “A cup of tea?”

“Who were you talking about?” Celebrían inquired, accepting the cup with a nod of thanks and joining the maids on the large table.

“Gildor, of course…”

“But fear not, my lady, for I have packed a healthy meal for him...”

“A healthy meal?”

“He was riding away, he told us, and asked if we could give him something to eat…”

“Riding away? How…how _dares_ he _!_ ” Anger and fear overcame even memories of a warm bed and a waiting husband. Trembling in rage, Celebrían rushed out of the kitchen in time to hear the heavy pounding of a galloping horse heading to the east road. Narrowing her eyes in fury, she made her mind up and ran to the stables.

“Was that Gildor, Thâronil?” she asked the stable master almost breathlessly. And then, at his nod, “bring me Asfaloth!”

“My lady...” Well-acquainted with her determined frown, the stable master shrugged as he went into the stables and came back leading Glorfindel’s horse. “He said he was headed for the northern grasslands,” he supplied then, moving aside quickly as she jumped on the feisty horse and nudged him at once into a wild chase.

It seemed to Celebrían that Gildor rode as if pursued by darkness inescapable, and he was right in a sense, she thought grimly as she dismounted to study the marks at the crossing.

“Well, at least he is not taking the road to Eregion,” she whispered to her steed, “but still he could be aiming to the Trollshaws, the foolish Elf…go on, Asfaloth, we must reach him and then…”

She caught up with him not much later, after Asfaloth -well used to reckless races- showed-off his talents in a wild descent towards the river. Gildor’s horse grazed peacefully in a meadow and his rider had taken seat under a group of chestnut trees that were already blazing gold. He looked up at her with mild interest as she stopped a few paces from him.

“Are you riding away _again,_ without even say goodbye?” she spat, looking down on him with undisguised contempt.

“Would you care?” he retorted in a challenging voice, meeting her eyes and then looking away quickly. “You made it quite clear _again_ that I was not welcome.”

Something glimpsed in that fleeting glance -compunction, fear, unbearable sorrow- made her bit her sharp tongue. With a heavy sigh she dismounted and then patted her horse.

“Give me a few moments with this ungrateful guest, Asfaloth, will you?” she asked loudly and then turned again to him, hands on hips. “So let us get this clear. Last time you felt…” she bit her tongue again. “Last time _I_ made you feel unwelcome in our house you ran away without warning and kept us in the dark about your whereabouts for a mere thousand sun-rounds. I will not allow that to happen again, Gildor,” she affirmed sternly, casting a scorching look down on him, waiting for the calm-looking elf to make his apologies.

“It is not for you to grant me permission, Celebrían,” he retorted, undaunted. “But I did not mean to ride away, although Bainloth seemed to think otherwise,” he murmured in astonishment as he opened his pack. “That, or else she readied breakfast for an entire patrol…Did you have breakfast?” he asked conversationally, proffering the bulging parcel towards her. Taken aback by his calmness, she picked an apple and sat on a flat stone before him.

“You were not riding away, then?”

Gildor shook his head, extending a napkin and placing chunks of bread, a whole round cheese and some pieces of cold meat on it.

“Not yet. We will remain here for a few days, I suspect. Mithrandir wants to consult with Elrond before crossing the mountains and paying a visit to your parents,” he informed in an even voice, biting a piece of cheese distractedly. “I just wanted to get out of your way for the day, and Mithrandir agreed to meet me here later,” he explained. A cheerful voice cut her next question.

“So there you are! Elrond will not be available until later, I am told…” They both looked up to see the wizard descending towards them from the opposite side of the path. He frowned briefly as he discovered Celebrían. “Ah, you came too…Well, so what was again the point of this little excursion?” he wondered, leaving his horse to join the others and casting a quizzical look at Celebrían as he sat down next to Gildor.

“She thought I was riding away… _again,”_ Gildor sighed, offering an apple.

“And you followed in rightful wrath to chastise him, I suppose?” 

“You cannot know how we felt all those years!” she finally exploded, hurt by the wizard’s reproachful tone. “I did not mean that you were not welcome here, just wanted you to stop dampening our joy...and then you go and disappear for a thousand years and I…!” She almost choked on a harsh sob and shrugged in impotence.

“I am sorry, Celebrían!” Gildor knelt beside her in one quick movement, a comforting hand on her shoulder and a regretful expression on his face. “I am really sorry…”

“You are sorry?” she laughed among tears. “ _I am_ sorry, that I chased you away so callously! But you needed not punish us so ruthlessly to make your point!” The hand on her shoulder tensed then, painfully, before it pulled away. The voice came out low and harsh.

“I…I never meant… You must not think…”

She looked up to the face that she knew so well, now twisted with powerful emotions. “Why then, Gildor?” she asked beseechingly. “Why did you let us believe that you had been killed, that you had faded…? Why didn’t you send word in all those years?”

He sat back on his heels and shook his head sadly. “I could not, Celebrían, just trust me. I could not.” he repeated, wincing as if it hurt.

“I…” she glanced at Mithrandir, who had been so protective of her kinsman, and thought to glimpse an almost imperceptible but encouraging nod. “I need to know, Gildor,” she insisted gently, taking one of his hands in hers and pressing affectionately.

He closed his eyes for a moment, breathed in deeply and passed his free hand over his brow.“I guess I owe you an explanation,” he sighed after a long silence in a harsh, tired voice, steadying his back against the chestnut and not meeting his companions’ eyes. “I rode away in anger, distressed by your refusal to see reason. It was not entirely your fault,” he admitted with a sad smile. “For ever since Dagorlad I had been too weighed down by loss to see hope in Middle-earth...So I wandered the lands of the west for some time until I decided to settle down in the Tower Hills, not far from the borders of Lindon. I would not sail, not even if certain pert niece generously granted me permission, for long ago I promised my great-uncle Finarfin that I would not leave Middle-earth while his daughter still dwelled here… and I was too burdened by grief to welcome company, so the solitude there suited me best for a while.”

“I did not know,” Celebrían put in in a low, embarrassed voice.

“How could you? I never told you.” He breathed in deeply and then launched into a sincere, dry account of what he remembered of that long, dark descent into darkness.

Sitting there under the golden canopy of the chestnuts, the merry creek singing at their feet and the birds chirping while they busied around in their morning chores, Celebrían could swear that she was back in the days of her youth in peaceful Lothlórien, listening to the endless tales of the dashing, mysterious, playful kinsman who had the habit to appear when least expected and remain for a season or two with them, singing songs, telling tales of a time long past and drawing smiles, and even laughter, on her naneth’s usually serious face.

Only now his voice was hoarse and his eyes clouded by suffering, his face wan and sallow, his glow dimmed and his demeanour uncertain as he slowly, painfully now, recounted the last part of his ordeal, the wild chase after his wolf-friend in the Old Forest, and how Mithrandir had saved him in the end. “… I managed to crawl towards Wolf…and collapsed over him. The last thing I remember is hearing the onrush of the Houseless ones towards us…Mithrandir can tell you the rest,” he finished in a harsh, weary voice; his eyes lowered, his face contorted in a pained grimace.

A heavy silence hung over them for a while. Celebrían was shaken by the sheer misery in Gildor’s tale, yet she could not wholly comprehend the extent of his suffering, so she settled for one thing that was nagging at her.

“Was it you that Wolf-lord, then? You… you saved Elladan, during the war!”

He shrugged laboriously. “I am glad if I did…but I do not remember, Celebrían. By then I had lived in twilight for so long that I no longer knew who or what I was…”

“But the…Houseless ones,” she whispered, and she shivered even as she spoke. “How… I mean, how could they?” Gildor covered his face with his hands and shook his head, speechless.

“The fëa of an Exile is extremely appealing for the Houseless ones,” Mithrandir chimed in conversationally. “So they would spare no effort in trying to grab a hold of him, of his light…”

“But…” Celebrían was torn between horror and a sick fascination. “How? I mean... well, he resisted them, didn’t he?” she asked then, turning a questioning glance to Mithrandir.

“For longer than anyone would have expected,” the wizard agreed, then sighed. “Finwë’s great grandchildren are no less stubborn and self-willed than their forefathers, I have come to learn,” he chuckled quietly. “You all have it in you to resist evil and darkness and despair even beyond measure, Celebrían, do not forget that,” he added seriously, with a sad look in bottomless eyes that pierced her deeply. He shook his head, as if trying to dispel a bad dream and then smiled gently. “I began wondering that there was someone missing after you so insistently questioned me about Exiles wandring the lands. I later got the whole story from your daughter, who was really worried about both of you.” 

“What?” Celebrían sputtered in surprise. Mithrandir laughed almost smugly.

“So once I knew whom I was looking for, I began looking out for weird tales of solitary strangers in the course of my travels… I did meet a handful; east, south, north, west…” the wizard continued pensively. “Indeed there remain more stranded souls than what we ever suspected, here in the shores of Hither…” He brought his pipe from his pocket and began cleaning it thoroughly. “But it was Círdan who first gave me the clue of something going amiss around the White Towers, although he never suspected that it was you, Gildor,” he said then with sincere regret. “Or else he would have rushed to your aid…or I would have come earlier!”

“Do not apologize,” Gildor said in the tone of one who is tired of repeating the same argument over and over again. “It was timely enough as it was…” 

“I began to suspect after I first searched the Towers and had that…unusual encounter, although I was not sure that those were Houseless ones,” Mithrandir continued, turning to Celebrían. “I suppose that once they found Gildor they clung to him, feeding on his anguish and his rage, and on the fear they caused in the enemies that he killed…He foolishly allowed them around in their wolfish shapes, thinking that he could keep them at bay forever, just feeding on his misery…So the Houseless waited, patiently, for him to surrender completely to despair… For many years they hunted together, or just lay low in the form of evil shapes in the dense forest that surrounds the Towers, which is inhabited by many other dark creatures as well…”

“And the wolf?”

“There are also stray creatures of light who never went to Aman, and who are friendly to the Firstborn....or at least enemies of the creatures of darkness,” the wizard said with a wide smile. “One of them sensed Gildor’s plight… and joined him in the form of a mighty wolf, strengthening his fëa and helping him resist the lure of the Houseless Ones…”

“He came shinning in the dark one day, when I was about to give up,” Gildor suddenly chimed in, his eyes closed, his voice weak. “He chased them away for a while…and it was as if the tiniest spark of hope had been rekindled for a brief moment... the brief moment I needed to get hold of myself and refuse the call of the Houseless ones. He remained with me after that,” he added with a gentle smile, “when their pull became more insidious.”

“What happened back there, in the forest?” Celebrían asked then, eager to know the ending of the tale.

“The Houseless ones felt that their time had come at last…They hoped the brigands would kill Gildor and his fëa would at last join them… It was a powerful gathering of Houseless and they fought us hard after they finished the brigands , for they craved Gildor and Wolf’s light…They besieged us for day and night,” he continued, sketching a wry smile, “and such a fight was not seen in that forest since the days when the Valar were young, I am sure…” He drew on his pipe for a while, as if lost in thought. “All would have been in vain, though, for I was alone, but when all seemed lost he appeared out of the woods and sent them hurtling into the deepest recesses of that mighty forest with a single wave of his hand…”

“Who? Who appeared?” Celebrían listened now with undivided interest, wholly ensnared by Mithrandir’s tale.

“Iarwain, naturally,” Mithrandir answered in a matter-of-factly manner. “Also known as Orald to Men and Forn to Dwarves…He is a mighty spirit, a stray from the hosts of Yavanna, I have no doubt…One of those who linger in the woods since the days before the Sun and can keep trees and dark things in line…He lives in the Old Forest and would not suffer the Houseless ones prowling around unchecked…He sheltered us in his house in the woods, and his wife, the River daughter, took care of Gildor until he saw it fit to return from wherever he had retired to, and grace us with his unmatched wit and sweet temper…”

“It took me long to recover,” Gildor admitted with a rueful smile, “and even longer to accept that I had to return among my kind, but Mithrandir would not let me give up…” Celebrían felt that she would cry at the hopeless, regretful look in her kinsman’s face. “Never meddle in the affairs of wizards, Celebrían, for they are subtle and quick to anger,” he warned then with a soft chuckle, while Mithrandir snorted in annoyance.

“And what about Wolf?” she managed to ask in a voice that did not tremble.

“Oh, he was soon back on his feet…and sensing that I was in good hands he returned to guard the Towers. He is still there, keeping the Houseless ones –and unwelcome strangers- at bay.”

“And are they...have they tried…?”

“The Houseless ones are all around, wherever they sense the light of a Firstborn, Celebrían… But I am confident that your kinsman has learnt the folly of his actions and will never again allow them to get close to him.”

“You saved me from something worse than death, Mithrandir…I will not squander that gift,” Gildor admitted apologetically. The wizard puffed his thanks away gracefully with the smoke of his pipe.

“We have already talked about that, young one,” he said dismissively. “I was but a tool. Had I not been available, some other help would have chanced. What is important is for _you,_ ” and saying this he cast a piercing glance to Celebrían, “both of you, to remember that you are not meant to succumb to grief…none of us is.”

“I am so sorry, Gildor,” Celebrían sighed, almost choking in the anguish that bubbled inside her. “How could I be so blind?”

“And what right did I have to begrudge you your safe haven?” the golden-haired elf wondered thoughtfully, dragging her into a comforting embrace. “I just chose to look back and drown in my own losses…rejecting the joy that I always found in your house…I was a thoughtless fool, to blame you two for my own misery, instead of accepting your comfort.”

“But you still disapprove of Elrond’s…decision?” He cast a worried look at Mithrandir and shrugged.

“I still do,” he confessed. “But it is his choice. All I can do is… be around in case you need me.”

“So you will not hassle him about it anymore?”

Gildor chuckled and shook his head sadly. “I promise. As long as you promise me that you will keep this disgraceful tale between us…”

“But Elrond…”

“He searched me inside out with just one look upon arrival… and learnt all that he needed to know. Please, Celebrían,” he begged softly. “This was painful enough, although I felt that I owed you somehow…but I do not want to go through it again…nor bear Elrond or Glorfindel’s compassion. It was my failure, and I entrust you with it…”

She frowned briefly and then let escape a resigned sigh.

“Your secret is safe with me. We will have to come up with some good explanation,” she admitted, conceding defeat. “It is not as if you just…wandered away for a few sun-rounds…”

“You will no doubt weave a convincing tale,” Gildor chuckled. “It is the least that you can do, after the long years I spent feeding you stories in your childhood!”

“I can do that,” she mused, a mischievous look in her face as they all got up and whistled to their horses. “And what are you going to tell my naneth?” she needled, packing the untouched meal back in his pack as they readied to mount.

“Nothing,” Gildor sighed, welcoming his mare and leaning on her for support. “We all have our own darkness to hide from…And plenty of reasons to come back to light,” he added with a brave smile at her pained expression. “It will be enough for her to know that I am back…”

“And that she has Mithrandir to thank for it,” Celebrían nodded seriously. “First you will submit to Cook’s care for a while, Gildor, but once you are recovered we will ride to Lothlórien. I want to be there when you tell my naneth that it was _nothing…_ ” _S_ he chuckled to hide the mixed emotions that warred inside her. “She did not talk to me for a long while after I confessed what I had told you that day, you know…”

“It was not your…”

“She was right, Gildor,” she nodded evenly. “And you were right as well. I may know not the deepest recesses of despair…but I have learnt how it tastes…and how hard it is to overcome.”

“And how important it is not to lose hope,” Mithrandir added. “And now, if everything is in order, don’t you think that we could be heading home for lunch, my lady?”

**TBC**

A/N Iarwain is the elven name for Bombadil.


	4. Beyond the Grey Shores

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She no longer found joy in Middle-earth.

**Chapter 4. Beyond the Grey Shores.**

**_Imladris. Spring, 2510, Third Age._ **

“It is time...”

“Wait...” Her voice was barely a sigh. A pale, bony hand appeared from under the blanket and searched for his beseechingly.

Gildor nodded and clasped it tightly against his chest, meeting sunken, grey eyes in a pallid, almost translucent face. He tried to smile encouragingly as he took seat beside the reclining figure and listened to the sweet, steady voice that carried towards them.

“She will be fine,” he whispered. The fragile-looking lady who had once been the light of the house nodded in gratitude, blinking away tears that coursed well-drawn paths on her thin, scarred face.

Pierced by a grief that stung anew, Gildor took her in his arms and pushed her into a gentle embrace, mindful of the wounds that would not heal and of the terrors that still plagued her. “And I will take good care of all of them, Celebrían,” he promised in a strangled voice, kissing her matted, lifeless silvery head. He swallowed tears that had not burnt so badly since a time long past, when he had narrowly survived the battle of Tumhalad only to learn that Nargothrond had been sacked and that his wife and his daughter had been dragged away as part of Finduilas’ retinue and had, most assuredly, joined her grim fate as well.

At the other end of the airy porch Arwen was reaching the end of her tale.

“And so it came to pass that the Guardian continued to dwell in the Towers, but from time to time he would also travel the land and serve as a guide to the Wandering Companies as they tarried leisurely on their way to the Grey Havens –as you, my friends, are about to do.” She cast a sorrowful glance towards Gildor and Celebrían and nodded. “May Elbereth shine on your path and may the Lord of Waters take you home swiftly!” she added in a voice that caught so slightly as she took over her naneth’s role for the first time in the ritual retelling of the Tale of the Guardian and the blesssing of those departing. The unusually grown-up audience -Celebrian’s retinue- stood up at Arwen’s blessing, and Gildor did the same.

“Come, child,” he whispered, bending to lift the diminished, trembling, brittle looking body with extreme tenderness. “It is time to go.”

Hurt in body and soul, her joy in life brutally taken away from her after such a cruel ordeal, Celebrían even lacked the strength to cast a last look at the place that had been her home. Protecting her against his strong chest, Gildor carried her to the waiting wagon and the grieving, desperate arms of her devastated husband.

“Will you lead the way, Gildor?” Glorfindel asked, checking that everyone was ready. Arwen had put on her riding gloves and mounted her chestnut mare. Celebrían’s escort had taken their places. The twins waited silently, well apart from everyone. Erestor had appointed himself to guiding the wagon, with Mithrandir by his side. Celeborn and Galadriel had returned to the Golden Wood a few days ago, too distressed to escort their child to the Havens. With a sad sigh, Gildor lifted his hand and signalled for the company to start moving. A chorus of silvery voices rose in song, escorting in sad, mournful goodbye the most subdued company that Gildor had ever guided to the Grey Havens.

**_Mithlond, a few weeks later_ ** **.**

“Spit it out!”

“What?” Gildor was taken aback by the unexpected harshness in Elrond’s voice. Beside him, Wolf growled in a soft, warning manner. All the way to Mithlond the lord of Imladris had sat inside the wagon holding Celebrían, apart from the rest, unattainable in his grief and his despair. Only when Círdan greeted them solemnly before the broken doors of Mithlond had he allowed his composure to slip and had he tolerated the comforting embrace of the Shipwright. And since thaw had begun, there was no reason for it to stop, Gildor told himself philosophically as he cautiously met his lord’s glare.

“You well know what I mean, you are dying to remind me that you warned us at the beginning of this Age!” Elrond accused, fidgeting with the ring in his finger.

“You do not believe that I would gloat about this,” Gildor stated flatly, and then dragged the distraught peredhel to take seat on a stone bench by one of the abandoned workshops that lined the quay. It was the grey hour before dawn, when things doubted their true shapes and colours and the sea sang differently. They sat in silence for a brief while and then Gildor turned a wary look at his friend. “I would never gloat about being right, Elrond, you know that,” he insisted quietly.

With a heavy sigh the half-elf passed a trembling hand over his brow and closed his eyes briefly. “Forgive me, my friend, I am not myself,” he whispered brokenly, shaking his head in despair and lifting tired eyes to the sky, perhaps hoping to get a glimpse of Eärendil in that time of great need. “Had I followed your wise counsel long ago, Eru knows how much suffering could have been avoided...These Rings are worth nothing,” he added with contempt, twisting the golden band obssesively. “What good would they do, if not even their combined powers could restore her light?” he wondered, as a solitary tear trickled down his proud face. He took Vilya off his finger and for a moment it seemed as if he intended to cast it into the restless waters. After a brief hestiation he shook his head and placed it back on his finger, a pained expression on his face.

“And who knows whether those rings actually prevented her from surrendering to her wounds and the unbearable grief?” Gildor found himself retorting. “She had the courage to survive where many others would have succumbed, but perhaps the rings kept her alive after that, Elrond, she was almost spent when your sons brought her home...”

“We felt protected in our safe haven, Gildor, disregarding the darkness that encroaches the world, selfishly closing ourselves to the grief and fading outside our valley...And we became careless, too proud and sure of our power...”

“Do you mean that Celebrían’s guards were careless?”

The sharp tone seemed to shake Elrond from the shocked contemplation of his failures. He tilted his head and looked at his friend almost uncomprehendingly. “Of course not! But was it not you who accused us of living in false security and selfish ignorance? Well, it seems that you were right after all!”

“Darkness and evil things have spread lately, Elrond, and mainly around Elven safehavens.” Sure that he had his friend’s attention, he met Elrond’s worried gaze and shook his head. “Thranduil has been pushed north, almost to the Mountains, by the Shadow in Dol Guldur, and Círdan still keeps the Havens because this is such an insignificant outpost that no enemy would think of charging against it..not until the rest is conquered....”

“I do not need you to remind me of those things! I may have isolated myself from what’s going on in Middle-earth but, trust me, I do know that orcs are multiplying in the Misty Mountains!” Elrond spat viciously, impotence fuelling his anger.

Gildor sighed and looked at the white ship that pitched merrily in the morning tide, eager to set sail West at sundown. “How many Elven strongholds would remain were it not for those rings?” he began softly. “Were it not for your safehaven, and that of Lórien, most of our kin would have sailed west long ago, tired of this marred world...”

“You already told me all that at the beginning of this age, and I was fool enough not to heed your warning,” was the miserable answer. Gildor shook his head and searched his friend’s troubled face.

“Perhaps you should have done so, I know not the answer, but then, who would have been left to fight the Shadow? Men are disunited and fighting among themselves, and many have bowed to this new Shadow...”

“We are too few to fight it, Gildor. We were barely strong enough the last time...”

“But we will find a way, perhaps not in the strength of arms but in the gathering of all races, as Ereinion once did....What I am saying is that perhaps, after all, you were right in remaining! Because you did stay, many of our kin remained with you, and many of us are still left to keep darkness at bay! So maybe those rings did serve their purpose after all, or perhaps a good thing will come out of your mistake, as it often happened in the past by the grace of Eru!”

“While Celebrían pays the price of my folly....”

“Celebrían is paying the price of this marred Arda, Elrond, as many others before her,” Gildor retorted sternly. “Do not burden yourself with guilt that belongs elsewhere. You need not that, nor do your sons,” he added in soft warning. Following Gildor’s gaze, Elrond let escape a deep sigh. Mounting guard before the light, airy pavillion that housed their naneth, Elladan and Elrohir resembled the stern, expressionless statues of carved stone that had once adorned the stairs down to the quay in the now abandoned haven.

“They will succumb to grief and hatred, and there is nothing that I can do,” Elrond admitted in mounting despair. “I will lose everything again, Gildor, because of my folly and my thoughtlessness...and I call myself wise!”

“Not even the wise know all ends, my friend,” Gildor sighed. It broke his heart to be reminded of the many losses the brave peredhel had endured along his life. “And you need not lose all. Leave Vilya with me, if here it must remain, and sail with her,” he offered in a low voice, aware of the burden that he was volunteering to carry. “I will take care of your sons and do what I can in your stead against the Shadow...” Elrond cast him a long, considering look, and then shook his head slowly.

“I cannot,” he said, placing one long hand protectively over the ring that he had been twsting in nervous displeasure before. Gildor frowned.

“A moment ago you were ready to deliver it into Ossë’s care,” he observed evenly. “And now you cannot? Or will you not?” he asked softly, understanding and compassion dawning on him.

Elrond frowned and then gave a little, guilty smile. “Both, I think,” he admitted tiredly. “But it is my duty as well, Gildor. If keeping it was a mistake, then it is my duty to redress it, or abide by it till the bitter end,” Elrond sighed proudly. “And if something good must turn out of it...well, I must then help it come through...”

“And I will remain by your side to help you either way, peredhel,” Gildor smiled, conceding defeat. “Go to your wife now,” he added, seeing that Elladan and Elrohir had left their posts and were peeking inside the tent. “It seems that you and I will have a lot of time to talk things at length, after all,” he added, patting his friend’s back in a fatherly manner that none except for Cirdan had dared to use for more than an age. 

“I am glad that you are staying, Gildor,” Elrond sighed gratefuly, and with a brave half-smile he walked towards the pavilion that sheltered his broken wife. Gildor watched as he tried to share the comfort that he had just received with his grieving sons, and shook his head as the twins jerked away from their father’s embrace. 

“You know how they feel, and how to best help them,” a friendly voice whispered with undisguised amusement. Gildor needed not look back to know that Mithrandir stood behind him. The sweet smell of galenas betrayed the wizard’s presence from twenty paces. He shrugged sadly.

“It will not be an easy task, they are stubborn...”

“I never said it was easy...” the wizard chuckled quietly.

They sat in silence or took peaceful strolls by the sea for most of that day with Glorfindel and Erestor, while Círdan gave the finishing touches to the ship. Nothing else stirred in the deserted Haven. The few elves that still lingered by those shores were a quiet lot, and they preferred to wander in solitude for most of the time. As Arien started to climb down towards the Doors of the Night, though, they began to gather at the long wooden tables in the deserted quay. Gildor could not hold back a wistful smile as he was reminded of similar occasions during the last age, when the Havens were bustling cities and every departing ship was greeted by a boisterous crowd that somehow managed to diminish the weight of grief and the sorrow of separation.

“It is time,” Glorfindel said, pointing at the pavillion. They filed in quietly to see a pale Celebrian half- sitting on a cot, supported by a distraught looking Elrond and surrounded by her children, all of whom had, at that point, given up all pretence of restraint. Surprisingly enough, Celebrían’s voice came out stronger than it had in all those months, but still a hoarse echo of her musical lilt.

“I entrust my family to your loyal and loving care, my friends,” she sighed, tears glistening in her eyes. “And I beg your forgiveness for so failing in my duty....” her voice broke then in harsh sobs as she clutched at her husband and was awkwardly comforted by her children. Gildor looked around in anguish, only to meet Glorfindel and Erestor’s equally pained eyes.

“Hush, hush, you did not fail, child,” Mithrandir chimed in unexpectedly, his voice unusually gentle as he knelt down beside the grieving familiy. “I once told you that the great grandchildren of Finwë were as strong and stubborn as their forefathers, and you are no exception. You will heal in Aman, Celebrían, and that will give hope to your family...that is your duty now...”

Gratefully accepting that comfort, Celebrían lifted hooded eyes to the wizard and smiled. Wan and pale as that smile was, a ghost of former beauty, for those watching it suddenly seemed as if the light of the Two Trees was shinning anew before them, in promise of hope and bliss yet to come.

“I will wait for you there, then,” she sighed. Lurking beneath grief and hopelessness Gildor heard the strength of will and stubborness of his own house, and was comforted and reassured.

“We know you will, child,” he offered with heartfelt hope, stepping forth to embrace her thin, fragile frame. “And we will _all_ be there with you,” he promised to her ears alone, meeting briefly her grateful glance before stepping aside to make room for others to say their goodbyes.

Perhaps Elrond would have preferred to see his wife off in solitude, but the elves of Lindon would not leave the herald of their late king to mourn alone. There was a gathering of friends there, singing softly as the grieving family escorted the ailing lady and her small retinue, and saw her comfortably settled in the ship that would carry her to healing -but away from them. The stones knew well the melancholy of partings, and echoed the silvery, mournful voices of the assembled elves.

In the end, Elrond descended from the ship and accepted the Shipwright’s comforting embrace as two mariners removed the plank and set the feisty ship free. Slowly at first, and then picking up a merry pace, the white boat set forth after the Sun, escorted by a glistening seabird while Eärendil watched from above.

 _“Go in peace, my friends, and with the blessings of those who remain behind, upon the rocks of these strange shores.”_ Gil-galad’s ritual parting words seemed to echo in the night’s breeze as the solitary ship disappeared from sight. After he made sure that Elrond and his children were safely guarded by their closest friends and counsellors, Gildor sat on a stone bench and rested his head on the still sun-warmed wall, drinking in the voices and memories that oozed from those ancient stones. After a few frutiless attempts at shaking him from his despondency, Wolf dropped by his side and nuzzled him comfortingly before curling up and falling into untroubled sleep, his big head resting on Gildor’s lap.

“Would you come and tell a story?” Mithrandir’s voice brought Gildor back from the path of waking dreams. Stretching his long limbs as he stood and casting a surprised look around, he noticed that the stars were high in the night sky. “They are all gathered around a fire in silence, but I’d say that they would welcome a tale,” Mithrandir added with a knowing wink. Resignedly, Gildor and Wolf followed the wizard up the stairs and to a stone yard before what had once been the harbourmaster’s office. Around a bonfire there sat Elrond and his children with Erestor, Glorfindel and Círdan, all enveloped in glum silence.

“You have pestered me for over a thousand sun-rounds now,” Gildor joked, slipping between Elladan and Elrohir and making room for himself on the tree trunk the twins were sharing. “And such persistence must be rewarded somehow, I think,” he added, meeting the curious glances cast his way from around the fire. “So let me tell you the true tale of the Guardian, the one only Mithrandir and your naneth know in full. It all began in the first ennin of this age, when I had an argument with your parents concerning certain decisions made by your adar after the war in Mordor, decisions that I did disapprove of....”

In a soft, singing voice, he unwound before them the tale of his madness and his slow descent into the clutches of darkest despair, one of his hands threaded in Wolf’s soft fur for support. As understanding and compassion were kindled in the faces around him, he somehow felt that everything had a meaning and that even if he might not be able to stop the twins from venting their anger and grief on mindless deeds of war for a time, perhaps the tale of his own plight and despair would help them to keep track of themselves before it was too late. And he would keep an eye on them, as would Mithrandir and Galadriel, so that one day he would fulfill his promise to Celebrían and set foot back in the Blessed Realm with all her familiy.

“The Wolf-lord?” Elladan’s incredulous voice brought him back to the tale. “I told you,” the eldest twin boasted, punching his twin’s shoulder in triumph, a rare smile shinning on his face. “Didn’t I?”

_**TBC** _


	5. Who Heals the Healer?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Elrond finds healing and hope in his own garden.

**Chapter 5. Who Heals the Healer?**

_**Imladris, 2523, T. A.** _

For some years after Celebrían sailed it seemed to Elrond that the world had turned a dull grey, even in his sheltered valley. He would find no joy in his daily chores, and Vilya’s weight on his finger was an ominous reminder of darkness pooling outside. His sons were away more often than not, busy butchering orcs with a blood-thirst that frightened him, and he worried that they might lose themselves to hatred and revenge, despite Gildor and Mithrandir’s careful watch over them. 

Overwhelmed by a grief like none he had experienced in his troubled life, he avoided his friends’ company and hid from the comforts of his own house and station, allowing himself to drown in a despair that was more numbing than what he had felt after Gil-galad’s passing. Unable to shake off despondency, he toiled with dark thoughts and wondered whether that was how mortals felt as old age crept upon them and sickness bent them -the marring of Arda corrupting their mortal hröa and consuming them. And then he would sulk for days, until some incident or another would fish him out of the deep pools of suffering for a while.

It came to pass on those days that Arahad finally consented to be taken to Imladris to seek Elrond’s help, or rather to end his days in peace. Arahad was –had been- the seventh chieftain of the Dúnedain, and a man of great strength of will. Weakened by a strange, painful illness, he had been unable to ride against the enemy for over twenty years, but still had retained firm control over his people. For years he had ordered their comings and goings from his carved wooden chair in the Angle, until he considered the time ripe for him to surrender office and authority to his eldest son, Aragost. The new chieftain was already a proven warrior who had ridden far and wide in the company of the sons of Elrond, hunting orcs and exploring the long leagues of Middle-earth even beyond the Misty Mountains.

Mostly out of respect Elrond had greeted the old chieftain, bent and hampered by swollen joints and aching limbs, and had carried out a perfunctory examination that only confirmed what he already suspected. He had prescribed herbs for the pain and wine for the spirit, and had then withdrawn to his customary seclusion, avoiding this ailing kinsman who he had once known as a lively child. The sight of the decaying man only fed his melancholy mood. He saw the inescapable hand of the Enemy everywhere, in the marring of Arda and the old age of Men, in the orcs that multiplied out of his valley and in men who bent ever more easily towards darkness and hatred. He would curse himself then for a fool, for having thought that they might, somehow, escape that evil fate and would twist the useless ring on his finger until it bled. 

*~*~*~*~*

“I hope that I am not disturbing your thoughts, Master Elrond…”

Though soft and weak, the voice still retained the calm authority of one who had carried the weight of power for a long time. Since there was no way that the old, impeded man sitting under a tree could have intruded on his peaceful stroll, Elrond acknowledged the faint rebuke with a rueful nod.

“The disturbance is welcome, Arahad,” he said with a friendly smile, coming to sit beside the chieftain under a very old apple tree. “I apologize that I have been scarce lately, but I am told that you are a delight to our cooks, a nuisance to our healers and an endless source of entertainment for our children. I am very grateful for all that, my friend,” he added warmly.

“Well, there must be some way to return your gracious gift…”

“It is no gift,” Elrond interrupted in a low voice. “You are my kinsman…”

“I appreciate your kindness anyway,” the chieftain grumbled in a deep voice. “And I am sorry for your loss,” he added after a brief pause. “I did not have the chance to say so on arrival…and you have been quite elusive since then, but I can see how grief still weighs on you…My heart bleeds for you, my friend…”

“I welcome your sympathy, Arahad. And please accept my apologies for neglecting my duties as host and kinsman.”

“Sorrow is a jealous mistress, I know it myself,” Arahad acknowledged. “When Beldis died, I shunned all company except that of my bow and my sword… much as your sons have done. You are entitled to your own grief, Elrond, and I am glad that I am allowed to your cellar –well, to its contents at least- even if not to your company…”

“You shame me,” Elrond admitted, the chieftain’s irony bringing a tiny smile to his face. “That one in your condition can still have such strength of spirit and good mood…”

“My condition?” the chieftain rumbled amusedly. “You mean this?” he asked, pointing at his useless, swollen legs. “Or the fact that I am dying? Do not apologize again, Elrond,” he continued with a warm smile. “Had I not learnt long ago to assume both conditions as part of myself, I would not have managed to continue living…”

“It must have been hard,” Elrond acknowledged softly, studying the knotty fingers and swollen joints in the wrinkled hand that had come to rest upon his. The man must be in great pain, he surely had been for years, and yet he was unfailingly kind and cheerful towards those who looked after him, and even had sympathy and concern to spare over the grief of a Firstborn. Not for the first time, he wondered at the strange stuff the Edain were made of, their unshakable resilience and their strength before misfortune.

“It was. There were some who would see it as a sign of evil, the marring of Arda and the corruption of our line, the mighty house of Elendil finally succumbing to the darkness that seeps even into our limbs,” he said thoughtfully. “And many wondered what point was there in leading a life like this…”

“And still you held on, despite the pain… I wish there had been more that I could do for you, Arahad…”

The man shrugged noncommittally. “You did enough; and so did your sons, sending herbs and healing potions, and showing care and respect for the old chieftain…And there was something good in all this, after all,” he added, shaking his head thoughtfully and casting a sidelong glance at his host.

Curious, in spite of himself, Elrond indulged the old man. “Would you care to share?”

The Dúnadan winked merrily and nodded, obviously pleased. “As you wish, my friend. See, when this sickness struck, I felt dispossessed of all that I thought was I: strength, prowess with weapons, ability to defend my people…Unable to go to war, forced to sit and think while my only son battled enemies away from home, I listened to my people and attended to their needs…and learnt to love what they love: the tilled land and the spring that brings new fruit and new foals; the laughter of children and the wisdom of old warriors, passing the same old tales down to a new generation…the peace of a home when the rangers are back, and the anguish of the parting; the joy of a safe return….or the quiet strength before misfortune… Those are the things that matter, Elrond, the soul of my people and what makes them strong, and I had forgotten while I was away, engrossed in battling evil day after day and losing sight of what it was that we defended…”

“But surely your fight is worth the price in itself...”

“It can be wearisome and hopeless too…Too much loss and despair and nothing in return but an early grave under the stars… And yet, as I sat there, feeling useless and tainted by the marring of Arda, I understood that my people are made of hope; hope that one day, no matter how long after our time, a new king shall arise from the ancient line and will set things to right, even if only for a while. Towards that hope we Dúnedain strive and toil all along our brief lives, hoping that each noble deed, each honest life will somehow add up to that greater good towards which we are always toiling…We are like trees, Elrond, always struggling upwards and beyond what is within our reach…and it is in our very nature not to despair, even if our efforts seem in vain… I would have not learned this had I not been tied to a chair for twenty sun-rounds….”

Elrond was well-aware that in the short span of their mortal lives men reached a deep level of wisdom and understanding that grew sharper in their old age, perhaps because of the proximity of death. Still, the wisdom in Arahad’s words hit him deeper than he was used to expecting from an old man, and left him speechless for a while.

“Like trees? King Thranduil would love to hear that,” he only managed to joke faintly in reply.

“I know that he is not very fond of the Secondborn,” the old man shrugged. “Look at this tree, Elrond,” he said suddenly, pointing at the apple tree that sheltered them. “What do you see?”

Elrond followed the old man’s curled finger. The tree was still in blossom, and the white flowers stood out like snow drops against the bright blue sky. He smiled and nodded, remembering.

“The guiding branch was broken,” Arahad continued softly. “I know, for I broke it, while playing a foolish game. I barely recall Erestor’s scolding, but the Lady Celebrían taught me a lesson that sustained me along my life. She told me that every action had consequences, and that perhaps the tree would die because of my carelessness, or perhaps other, unexpected thing might happen…As it did. I remember that I watched this tree for long moons until I was sure that a new side branch was taking up and leading the tree along a new, unforeseen path… Always upwards, as trees are supposed to do…She taught me not to despair, Elrond; to stand up to my actions and my decisions and assume my responsibility over consequences, and always, always strive and hope -that something good might in the end turn out of evil.”

“She had a way for finding hope everywhere,” Elrond admitted sadly, “but it failed her when she most needed it …”

“That I know not,” Arahad said. “I was not here, so I cannot judge. But I will tell you something I do know. While I sat there in my hut in the Angle, and despair threatened to overcome me, I would close my eyes and remember this apple tree, and your lady wife’s words. I would wonder how tall the side branch had reached and what the stunted former leading branch had been doing meanwhile… It is amazing, Elrond, how body and soul struggled to accommodate this new state of things… How, slowly but steadily, I managed to find a new way to be useful to my people, and to support the new guiding branch even in my “condition”… What are trees but a mix of light and soil turned into an unstoppable force always driving upwards towards the sky? I know not what you Elves are, but we men are such forces as well. Marring and evil and misfortune only teach us to keep struggling with more strength and more hope…” He cast a brief look at his host’s dumbfounded expression and smiled bashfully. “You will surely forgive an old man who gets carried away and pretends to lecture an elven loremaster…”

“On the contrary, I will bow to your wisdom, Arahad, and thank you for your words. Again you shame me; that one of the Edain must teach a Firstborn about hope…”

“We necessarily grow more familiar with hope as our brief lives approach the end…although there are many who turn their backs on it. I know not how it is for elves…”

“We call it _estel_ ,” Elrond spoke softly, slowly, as if surprised to find inside himself a truth he did not expect to be there. “It lies within the very substance of Arda, of which we Elves are made of…It is embedded in stone and light and water and air, in all the things that we love…a promise and a certainty, it is everywhere and yet at times it is hidden…”

“It is easy to lose sight of things that are so plain before your eyes; I know that myself…It took me long sun-rounds of sitting and thinking to get my answer. And you Elves are too used to sitting and thinking, so perhaps the effect is somehow spoiled…”

For the first time in fifteen years, Elrond chuckled openly. “Fortunately, we have our wise kin always ready to teach us Elves a quick lesson in hope,” he said, looking up at the stunted guiding branch and picturing his wife’s serene face and caring smile as she taught the young Dúnadan a lesson that, years later, would heal her own husband. “I was a fool to deprive myself of your company all this time…”

“Well, each wound takes its own time to heal,” the old man observed. “But you are welcome to make up for it. See, it is time for storytelling!” he observed, pointing at the children that approached them from different corners of the garden.

Elrond sat there as the late spring sun went down lazily; barely listening at the old chieftain’s droning and the children’s laughter, concentrated in feeling his wounds begin to heal. It was true, even in the marring of Arda there was a place for hope and healing, and he was ashamed that he had forgotten that, or that he had failed to see hope in Celebrían’s stubborn resistance and her brave departure.

She was alive, after all, waiting for them beyond the Sea, and it was by his own choice that he had remained to try and hold decay and darkness at bay, hoping, together with the Dúnedain, that one day a new king would arise from Elros’ line and would bring back light and hope to Middle-earth for a while. By the time Eärendil set on his nightly cruise, his son had already regained his strength of will and had remembered what force drove the elves in their hopeless struggle for a land they were bound to lose.

Arahad died while the autumn was still young, and was buried under his apple-tree. That secluded corner soon became a preferred spot for those who felt sad and burdened by grief to come and sit, and such was the grace of the place that no sorrow would last long there.

_**Imladris, 2933, T.A** _ _._

“…you will be safe here, my lady, and I will raise him as my own…Come take a seat...” Carefully, Elrond led the grief-stricken woman towards a bench in the apple orchard. She sniffed weakly and patted the child’s grubby hand with an encouraging smile, unclenching it from her skirts.

“Go my heart, go and play… see those apples on the ground? Pile them together…He is so young,” she sighed, watching the toddler stumbling over the fallen apples and picking them up carefully. “What will he remember of his adar, of his people?”

“All memories are preserved in Imladris, Lady Gilraen, and he will be taught about them in time,” he reassured the distraught woman. “But it would be better if he grew up free of that burden…”

But she was not listening.

“Watch out, Aragorn!” She half-stood in alarm as the child stumbled and fell down, but soon he was up on his feet, waving merrily to his naneth.

“And we should change his name…”

A strangled sob was all the answer he got. The woman was strong and brave and she knew what was necessary, but it still tore at his heart to watch her grief still so raw. The child had sat –rather fallen back- by the dead apple-tree with the broken guiding branch, the one that had been left standing in memory of Arahad, and was now busy pushing the wrinkled apples into his pockets and gurgling in merriment as they rolled out.

Elrond looked around, raking his brains for a name that would give comfort to the distraught mother while effectively hiding the child’s true heritage. “Estel,” he said, filled with a sense of joy that almost overwhelmed him. “He'll be Estel.”

**TBC**


	6. Necessity. What If...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Guardian fulfils his promise at long last. In Aman, Elrond ponders...and so does Finrod.

_The Guardian fulfils his promise at long last._

**_Edoras, August 14 th 3019, Third Age._ **

“How did it come to this? What if I had…Oh, Gildor, at times I cannot help wondering whether my happiness is worth causing him such deep grief!”

Gildor followed her teary gaze. They stood on a windy terrace in the Golden Hall, watching over the endless grasslands of Rohan. Below them, in one of the courtyards, Elrond watched with polite interest and a vague smile as Éomer King fussed around a well-proportioned stallion and bantered with the twins. And yet Gildor knew that he was crying inside at the thought that he was losing his beloved daughter to the same fate his brother had chosen so long ago. He sighed and shrugged. Elrond had become a master in taming his own grief, and he knew that his friend would not want his daughter’s short-lived hapiness to be dampened by the weight of his sorrow. He passed a comforting arm over Arwen’s shoulders and dragged her against him.

“Your happiness is worth this and more, child,” he reassured her. “As for how it came to pass...Well, it is all in the music. Somehow at one point you agreed to play a certain chord. Call it necessity, my lady, and be comforted by the fact that you could have rejected it. Since each of us followed a certain tune to the best of our abilities, it is here where we find ourselves today, and not elsewhere...”

“But it is hard, to be the cause of such sorrow!”

“You are the cause of inmense joy, Arwen,” he chided her gently. “We are pained by the way things are, and by our limited understanding of the Music… Still, most of the time we are capable to see how happy you are, and rejoice in it.”

They remained in silence for a while, and finally Gildor pushed back and watched her intently, holding her at arms’ length. “I gave you my word long ago, Arwen,” he sighed with a soft smile, remembering the composed, serious child that she had been. “And now I fulfill my promise. I inform you that I am taking my leave from Middle-earth and taking ship to the West. I wish you all the joy that he Music has in store for you, my child,” he added after a brief pause. “Do not let memories burden you, for even if you chose differently, still you are one of the Firstborn, and you know what memories are for our kin. Live your life in happiness and be sure that at one point we will all meet again...”

Too moved for words, Arwen pressed her face against his chest and embraced him tightly. “Tell my naneth...”

“I will send your love to her...and tell her that your life is blessed. She will be glad for you as we all are.” With a deep sigh, Arwen looked up, wiped traces of tears form her eyes and stretched to place a soft kiss on her kinsman’s face.

“Thank you for all your past and present kindness, Gildor,” she said simply. “You have been a great support to me and to my family and I will never forget you. Will you accept this small present, so that you remember me as well?” She proferred her closed hand and opened it slowly to reveal a very old coral bracelet there. With a tender smile, Gildor shook his head and closed her white hand over it.

“Your people need not trinkets to be reminded of their Evenstar, my child,” he said softly. “Your beauty and your valour and your gentleness will be the matter of song long after Arda is remade. You keep it, for your children’s children, so that *they* are reminded of their ancestry.”

“And that they will know of the dashing uncle who told incredible tales and brought wonderful presents from his journeys...and ran with wolves in the forest. May Eru bless you, Gildor, and may you find your loved ones waiting for you when you return to your home of old,” she added, pressing tightly one last time against him and almost choking in her tears.

“Are you upsetting my wife, Guardian?” Aragorn walked up to them with a sad, knowing look on his face. Tenderly, Gildor disentangled himself from Arwen’s embrace and delivered her into her husband’s open arms.

“So that you have the pleasure of comforting her, Estel,” he smiled, nodding to the full-grown king that had once been a restless child always eager for tales and news from foreign lands. “By your leave, now I will go and get ready for the journey. May the stars of Varda always shine upon you, Queen Arwen,” he offered, bowing formally before her and striding away wihtout looking back.

And yet as he climbed down the stairs, burdened by a sorrow that was not bitter, he also felt a deep joy slowly bubbling inside him. For the first time in three ages he felt the call of the Sea stirring deeply in his soul. A shiver of anticipation coursed down his spine, as he understood that all his toils were ended and that he was, at last, heading home.

**_In Aman, some time in the Fourth Age._ **

_Elrond ponders. So does Finrod._

“That is plain nonsense anyway, but if you insist on playing that game then you could as well put the blame on me.” 

Elrond looked at his companion as if he had suddenly sprouted wings. “What? How? Why!” 

"It is quite clear, isn't it?"

The waves crashed playfully at their feet and muffled the ring of Finrod’s amused laughter. Elrond shook his head. One of the things that he had found difficult to adjust to in Aman was that nobody here immediately accepted what he said as a surge from the fountain of universal wisdom. It was refreshing in a way, but at times also annoying, for one who had once been considered the greatest lore master in Middle-earth and was now regarded benignly as a young distant cousin, who still had to learn the most basic truths of life. 

“Perhaps my wit is too dimmed by the light of Aman to grasp such simple concepts, kinsman," he retorted a bit stiffly. "Would you care to enlighten me?”

"With pleasure," Finrod answered good-naturedly, unaffected by Elrond's caustic remark. "I meant..Oh, but look at that!"

Take this Finrod, for instance, Elrond sighed inwardly as his wife’s uncle raised a long hand to stem his questions and stood in awed contemplation of a string of gannets as they glided over the crest of a long wave in perfect formation before, all of a sudden, soaring up high as one. A grandson of Finwë’s, born in the light of the Trees and raised among the Powers, exiled, killed by Sauron, reborn…and he could lose all interest in an important conversation with Elrond Peredhel and stand there with water to his ankles, simply watching as a flock of seagulls performed their unchanging routine before his ancient eyes. 

“Wonderful, aren’t they?” Elrond could not deny that they were. He was glad to spend time by the shores, actually, for it reminded him of the happy days of his youth in Lindon. But he had more pressing questions in his mind. 

“They winter high at sea, where the winds and waves are stronger, and only return on the wings of spring, did you know that?” 

“I did. I grew up by the sea-side, after all,” Elrond did not bother to disguise the impatient edge on his voice. If he noticed, Finrod chose to disregard it.

“They make me think of our kin as they leave behind the troubled lands of Middle-earth and sail into the welcoming, peaceful harbour of Eressëa…what a change that must be for them! But forgive me, Elrond, I am rambling and you were busy blaming yourself for your wife’s misfortunes…” 

Put that way, it sounded almost ridiculous, Elrond frowned. And still a few moments ago, watching his wife from a distance as she played happily with Finrod’s grandchildren, a sharp pain had threatened to choke him as memories of her broken hröa and her wounded fëa flooded him unbidden. He had then felt forced to blurt out his guilt as he had not yet done before. 

_What if_ … he had wondered aloud in pure misery, pondering how he could have spared her all that suffering. 

Wisely, Finrod had raised his brows in courteous interest and had then spat that puzzling piece of wisdom before turning his attention to the sea birds, thus giving Elrond time to regain mastery of his feelings. And now that Elrond felt embarrassed by his untimely outburst of sentiment, of course his kinsman would not let the subject lie. Prying was an honoured family pastime, after all. 

“Now I am busy wondering why I should blame _you,_ of all people, for Celebrían's ordeal,” Elrond retorted in annoyance. But Finrod was not deterred by what used to be considered an imposing glare, which seemed to have lost its edge in the crossing, Elrond noticed ruefully.

“Oh, that!” the prince chuckled, resuming their leisurely walk towards Olwë’s seashore terraces, where they were to have lunch with the rest of the extended family that had come from Tirion and Eressëa. “Well, you started the _What if_ game...Let's imagine for a moment that I had chosen to remain in Aman…what would have happened?”

Elrond shook his head and shrugged in exasperation, then obliged his good-natured relative by making a guess. “I wouldn’t have been born?” 

“Oh, or you might have, but who knows whose son you would be? Lúthien might have married poor Daeron in the end…” 

“What of Beren?” Elrond shivered at the thought, following Finrod as he climbed a sand dune. 

“Without my ring, Thingol might have had him killed him on the spot…or imprisoned…or just sent away empty-handed. Perhaps, without my meddling, my brother Aegnor would have dared to marry Andreth...who knows?” Finrod wondered aloud, in a voice that had suddenly lost its playful lilt.

He still grieved for his youngest brother’s fate, Elrond thought in sympathy, chasing away his own worries about the still uncertain fate of the children he had left behind.

“Maybe a child of theirs would have wrestled the Silmaril from Morgoth’s crown…and Doriath would have been spared…” Finrod continued in a soft, wistful voice.

“And so Elwing would have never travelled to Sirion and would have never met Eärendil,” Elrond supplied the obvious continuation to the story. 

“Who knows whose son you would be, then?” Finrod repeated thoughtfully. 

“The Silmaril might have gone to Nargothrond…or wherever the stronghold of Finarfin's children would have stood…and Maedhros would have had to race Glaurung for the loot.” Despite himself, Elrond was now fully immersed in the game. Finrod cast him a wry smile. 

“And perhaps Celebrimbor would have been killed there, by one faction or the other, so he would have never been fooled later by Sauron, nor forged his infamous rings…” 

They looked at each other, sobered up by the implications. 

“So you see the how I could have spared _you_ the anguish of witnessing Celebrían’s suffering, had _I_ but chosen wisely, Elrond?” Finrod called back over his shoulder as they trudged up the slippery dune. Something in his voice gave Elrond pause. 

“Those are mere speculations, Finrod,” he argued comfortingly. “You cannot possibly know…” The High Prince stopped to cast him a pondering look. 

“Let us make it simpler then,” he continued in a lowered voice. “I could have gone to Middle-earth after all, but then I could have forbidden my sister to marry Celeborn –not that I ever had any chance,” he rushed to admit with a sheepish smile. “But for the sake of the argument, Celebrían would have never been their daughter.…” 

“And had I sailed away when Eonwë suggested –or right after the fall of Sauron- I would have never married her…I get your point,” Elrond admitted, raising his hands to stem the flow. It had just dawned on him, the meaning of that strange game they were playing. 

“Exactly. Yet you are tiptoeing around the main issue,” Finrod reminded him as they reached the top of the sand dune. A nesting seagull cast them a brief glance and discarded them as either food or danger with annoying flippancy. “You could have cast Vilya to the fires of Orodruin and sailed away with your family while Sauron was dormant…This way you would have saved your wife and your daughter, and ensured that your sons came with you, one would think…” 

“You…how do you…?” Elrond almost choked in his rage. “Did Gildor tell you?” he demanded, turning his back on his kinsman and fixing his eyes on the moss-coloured sea that swelled in growing agitation as the clouds gathered above it. Ossë was angry. And he could only sympathize with the sentiment. 

“Why would anyone tell me?” Finrod sounded honestly puzzled then. “It just makes sense, after all those _what ifs of yours,_ that this would be your main regret…”

Elrond had to concede the point as he trailed reluctantly after Finrod along the crest of the sand dune. His train of thought, even his deepest feelings had become painfully obvious to those around him lately, it seemed. 

“It is sheer folly, useless conjectures, I know,” he said tightly, trying –and failing- to disguise his annoyance. “But I suppose that we new arrivals are allowed a certain amount of silliness, on account of our being unaccustomed to the unchallenged bliss pervading the place…” 

“Of course you are, and to more than a fair share of sarcasm, bitterness and remorse. And not only you newcomers, but we long-time residents as well, so be at ease, rant away,” Finrod chuckled softly, shaking his golden head and opening his arms as if to better embrace the fresh, salty air that came from the sea before he carefully began the descent. Again, the tone of his voice stirred Elrond’s healer curiosity beyond the self-compassion that had flooded him for the last hours. 

“Remorse? Here? What possibly can you…” And again he felt like a petulant elfling contesting Glorfindel’s battle tactics in the training grounds. Fortunately, his kinsman possessed all of Glorfindel’s patience towards upstarts, and chose not to take offence from the overt contempt in Elrond’s voice. It had to be a Reborn thing, Elrond decided, a bit ashamed of himself. 

“Everyone has regrets, Elrond,” Finrod informed him softly, stopping to pull open an iron-wrought gate crowned by opposing swans. They had reached now the back of Olwë’s palace. “Look up there.” 

Expecting to be shown another string of sea-birds doing sea-bird things, Elrond turned reluctantly to follow Finrod’s pointing finger. 

“Eru!” he gasped in awe at the sight. Out of the waves to their left, towards Olwë’s terraces, which reached deep into the sea, emerged a mighty silhouette of foam and stone and seaweed and silvery scales. The Telerin king leaned on his railing of glistening mother-of-pearl and seemed deep in conversation with the imposing creature. 

“It is only Ossë,” Finrod corrected him distractedly. “They have this ages-long dispute concerning the limits of the tides…From time to time Ossë gets carried away, and my grandfather complains that he floods his terraces unnecessarily.” 

The majesty of the Maia was so impressive that for a brief while Elrond forgot his questions and his bitterness, enthralled by the sheer eeriness of the sight. 

“My grandfather still wonders _what if_ he had surrendered his ships to Fëanor on the first place,” Finrod continued with his generous and patient enlightenment of his kinsman. “After all, they were just things, though as valuable to them as the Silmarils.” 

“In hindsight everything looks differently,” Elrond agreed almost unconsciously and then chuckled softly. “You got me there, Finrod. But surely a reborn in the Blessed Realm has no qualms?” 

“Well…” For a brief moment the bright prince looked quite embarrassed. “I used to travel often to Númenor, and I had some influence over many of your brother’s descendants –and the party of the Faithful as well. Had I succeeded in convincing the Númenoreans to abandon their folly, they would have opposed Ar-Pharazon’s designs more firmly and Sauron would have never returned to Middle-earth…Númenor would have stood, Amandil would not have been lost and Elendil would not have landed there…so your daughter might have never given up her gift to marry a descendant of the Kings of Númenor…” he stopped then and pierced Elrond with eyes that were clear as shallow waters. 

“Every life is made out of the deeds and decisions and mistakes committed by many others, Elrond,” he reminded him gently, “so if you are going to blame yourself for not taking ship when you _now_ think that you should have, you could as well have a look at how other people’s lives would have been affected in case you had…” 

“That is hardly the matter…” 

“Well, look at it this way: Had Olwë chosen to remain in Middle-earth and look for his brother, or had Finwë refused to go on the Great March, or to marry Indis after Míriel died…neither you nor I would be standing here right now, wallowing in self-compassion about our own mistakes...” 

The breeze blew in from high at sea, bringing in the song and scent of deeper waters. Elrond breathed in eagerly and then exhaled, allowing his bitterness to dissolve and fly away in Manwë’s winds. “And still it is hard to admit…” he sighed sadly. 

“It is,” Finrod acknowledged easily. “We do not choose who we are, but we choose how to act. You were born with a great fate and a sad, difficult lot before you, Elrond, but at every step you could have made different choices. And it would have mattered not in the end, for there would have been other means to achieve the will of the One, since his Music won’t be denied … only your life would have been different, and that of those around you…” 

That angered Elrond. “You mean that all our suffering was in vain, our sacrifices for nothing?” 

“ _Our_ sacrifices were _our_ choices, Elrond,” Finrod retorted gently, without losing his composure.

Elrond blushed deeply, remembering how he had died -and what for- he whom he was accusing of lessening the importance of the deeds of the Eldar in the shores of Middle-earth.

“What matters in the end is not what we did," the prince continued, "but _that_ we did it, and why, whether we embraced our lot in the Music and lived it through honestly or not.” 

“Even when our mistakes were cause of great suffering?” 

“Not any of our single lives is perfect, Elrond, but the whole tale is, for it is Eru’s tale, and it is woven so that even our most painful mistakes are threaded together into full meaning…and turned into another chord in his Music. It just...takes us some time to perceive it,” he added with a playful wink. 

Elrond walked in silence for a while, following Finrod as he climbed the marble stairs towards the terraces, pondering his arguments and stubbornly fighting the wave of bliss that the prince’s words had brought to his troubled fëa. 

“It seems to me that you have had plenty of time to ponder such deep matters,” he finally let go dryly. Finrod cast him an amused glance and shot back without stopping. 

“This is the Blessed Realm, Elrond, the timeless land of changelessness… Elvenhome, where you are free to dwell on your own musings till the end of Arda... Isn’t this what you tried to recreate in that hidden valley of yours?” 

“Well, we never reached this level of perfection there,” he admitted ruefully, acknowledging the point with an incredulous shake of his head. “Do you mean that we do nothing else else around here but musing?” he asked with undisguised trepidation at the prospect of endless ages devoted to such debates. 

“I mean that _time_ has no meaning at all for us here, no matter what we want to do… We could even start another rebellion, while Arda lasts... How did it go, Grandfather?” he greeted then, climbing the last steps with a graceful leap. Olwë walked towards them with a mighty, intimidating frown. There were no traces of Ossë, except for a large pool on the polished floor. 

“As always. There is no reasoning with a Maia, as I should have learned by now…Are you fleeing the gathering as well?” he asked then with a conspiratorial wink, waving towards the palace. The mingled voices of adults and children engaged in noisy games and conversation reached them, even if muffled by the endless rolling of the waves. 

“Not exactly. We were busy discussing the twisted paths of doom and fate that guided us here,” Elrond sighed tiredly, still processing Finrod’s last tirade. 

“That is a heavy occupation, young ones. I have a flask of cold white wine there…” 

“What if we skip the family meal, Finrod?” Elrond asked then with a mischievous smile on his face, suddenly animated by the prospect. The High Prince grinned and shrugged. 

“I am ready to embrace the consequences of this particular sacrifice…” 

“Let us go then, I will take the brunt of our ladies’ wrath,” Olwë offered magnanimously, leading them towards his private shelter in a corner of the large terrace.

“See, Elrond? Even here in the Blessed Realm there are still great challenges to be faced…and bitter mistakes of incalculable consequences to be made…” 

“It will take time to get used to this,” Elrond agreed most seriously as he sprawled on a comfortable chair and accepted a goblet from Olwë. “But I will do my best!” 

**The End**

**Thanks for reading!  
**


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